User participation in crisis and contingency work: From passive recipient to active resource

Research Project, 2021 – 2024

In October 2021 a 3.5-year research project about how to increase the user participation in planning and development of crisis and contingency work, by inclusion of people with various types of disabilities and their interest organisations as co-creators. This project is financed by MSB, and performed in collaboration with Lund University and Linneaus University. 
     Crisis preparedness and crisis management aims to reduce, control, or mitigate the effects of unforeseen events and emergencies, and affect all inhabitants of society. It is important to meet all individual needs in the work with social protection. People with disabilities are often overlooked as actors both in the development of crisis and contingency plans and during acute crisis management.
     The overall aim of this project is to develops methods, strategies, and guidelines for how groups with varying needs can be involved as active resources in the society's crisis management. Knowledge and experience of people with different types of disabilities can thus be utilized to prevent, manage, and recover from serious events and crises.
     The project is implemented with a user-cantered research approach with theory and methodology from the areas of human factors and universal design. In active collaboration with various societal actors and people with disabilities, as example co-creative workshops and focus groups should be conducted through co-creation and crowdsourcing. This should result in innovative complementary solutions, such as new or further developed information and communication channels based on user requirements and universal design. The outcome of the project will support the work towards a safer society for actors at municipal, regional, national, and international level as well as be included in various types of teaching activities. To conclude this research leads to towards possibilities to achieve a safer society for all; a society that entails increased autonomy and equal conditions, and better meets diversity, social inclusion, and equality, which can also reduce the need for society's resources.