During its recently held 13th meeting in Qingdao, China, IRDR’s Science Committee (SC) members approved the application from the Institute for Spatial and Regional Planning (IREUS) within the Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Management at the University of Stuttgart, Germany as the IRDR International Centre of Excellence on Critical Infrastructures and Strategic Planning  (IRDR ICoE-CISP). This new ICoE will support integrated research on the resilience of critical infrastructures, their management and the increasing dependency of societies on the functioning of critical infrastructures.

While the IRDR ICoE-CISP will be established at the interdisciplinary institute of Spatial and Regional planning (IREUS), the Centre will function as a network with the strong involvement of all network partners, namely the United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn; the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT); and with a strong commitment from the Center for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology (CEDIM), the University of Potsdam, and the Institute for Social Science, Department of Technical and Environmental Sociology at the University of Stuttgart.

SC member, Prof Joern Birkmann, who presented the proposal for this new ICoE during the 13th SC meeting, noted that the development of the proposal went through a rigorous development process, including several meetings in 2015 with the core members of the above proposing institutes. The proposal was also presented and discussed at the last meeting of the German Committee for Disaster Reduction (Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge e.V. – DKKV) held on 10 May 2015. DKKV is also an IRDR National Committee (NC) and is in full support of the proposal. Several of its scientific board indicated their interest to support the initiative and to participate in selected activities.

IRDR ICoE-CISP will provide an important network mechanism between national and international researchers in the field of critical infrastructure and planning research and IRDR’s project working groups DATA, FORIN and RIA.

To be considered as an IRDR ICoE, interested institutions should prepare an expression of interest, closely adhering to the guidelines in the Terms of Reference for IRDR ICoEs, and submit to the IRDR IPO via email: connect@irdrinternational.org.