On March 7^th, principle investigators, PhD students and postdocs gathered to celebrate the kick-off of the PDPC frontrunner: Social and Urban Resilience for Pandemics and Disasters (SURE) project, at the Gemaal op Zuid in Rotterdam.

Resilience is the ability of a person, household or community to offer resistance to, adapt to or recover from a crisis. Within subprojects it will be researched how society’s resilience can be improved. The knowledge gained will be used for the Living Lab.

Maarten van Ham kicked off the day, followed by a birds-eye view on the SURE project by Pearl Dykstra, where she reminded everyone that “We need ambassadors within the social sciences. We must unite”.

Next, interactive sessions took place on how we understand resilience, led by Guusje Enneking and Lotte Schrijver. Resilience needs to be studied and addressed on an individual, group, and system level.

Lastly, Kevin Pijpers gave an introduction to the Living Lab. Examples of existing living labs were given, followed by group discussions on e.g. how to actively involve the citizens in the living lab.

Read more about the Frontrunner Project: Towards social and urban resilience.

Date: March 8, 2023

From left to right: Guusje Enneking, Maarten van Ham, Kevin Pijpers, Hélène Voeten, Gijs Custers, Rens Vliegenthart, Luc Coffeng, Pearl Dykstra, Marjolein Pijpers-Van Esch, Linda Jansen, Arnoud Molenaar, Lotte Schrijver, Sake de Vlas, Nora Bünemann, Eline Boezelman