As a member of the Fraunhofer Group for Innovation Research, the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO is participating in the recently launched project KResCo, which is investigating crisis management and its impact during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fraunhofer IAO is focusing on the dimension of civil protection.
Since the initial outbreak in early 2020,, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised major challenges for many different sectors of society. The reactions in different countries and economic zones have been extremely varied. This is largely the result of a difference in conditions, capabilities, measures and impacts. The joint Fraunhofer research project KResCo takes a closer look at these. As a member of the Fraunhofer Group for Innovation Research, the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO is contributing its expertise in data management. In particular, it is helping to structure internal research data and investigating the topic of crisis management and civil protection.
The aim of the project is to develop concrete recommendations for decision-makers from the areas of politics, business, civil protection and research. These science-based recommendations are intended to provide guidance both in the current COVID-19 pandemic and in future crises. In particular, the results of this project may help strengthen society’s resilience by providing decision-makers with a better understanding of the impact of their decisions and thereby improving the quality of crisis management. A further, overarching goal of KResCo is to compile open-access datasets for use in further scientific work in the pandemic field.
The project focuses on the policy decisions taken by various countries in connection with the COVID-19 crisis. In an initial step, empirical data are being collected. These will then be analyzed in order to determine the impact of political decisions on four societal systems and their stakeholders. These systems are the economy and society, innovation, civil protection and emergency response, and research.
In the course of the project, decisions and developments in Germany will be compared with those in other countries in Europe and beyond. The four core countries will be subject to a comprehensive analysis. Alongside Germany, these will in all likelihood be Austria, Italy and Sweden. Both Italy, as the first European country with COVID-19 cases, and Sweden, which employed a herd immunity approach, are particularly interesting options for comparison. In addition to these core countries, various other countries will also be considered, with a focus on individual aspects of their response to the pandemic. These countries will be selected according to a number of criteria, including their access to data and experts, their comparability with Germany, their specific characteristics and the decisions they made during the crisis.
In partnership with the Fraunhofer Institute for Technological Trend Analysis INT and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI, a research team from Fraunhofer IAO will be investigating the impact of the pandemic on the systems of civil protection in the four core countries and Switzerland. This work will focus on government agencies, as key organs of crisis management, and on the emergency services. Researchers will consider the role of organizational learning in the field of resilience management and in terms of specific resilience concepts. In addition, the team will be looking at the use and impact of digitalization in crisis management.
There are five Fraunhofer institutes involved in the project: Fraunhofer INT, Fraunhofer IAO, Fraunhofer IMW, Fraunhofer IRB and Fraunhofer ISI. This makes KResCo one of the very first projects in which all of the member institutes of the Fraunhofer Group for Innovation Research have joined forces to bring their respective strengths and expertise to bear on a central problem. This approach will serve as a model for future collaboration within the group.
As an expert partner offering a unique combination of socioeconomic and sociotechnical research, the Fraunhofer Group for Innovation Research provides orientation and helps stakeholders define their own position and shape the future within the innovation system.
Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO