Professor Emily Ying Yang Chan, Director of the Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC), which hosts an IRDR ICoE since 2016,  and her team visited IRDR IPO on May 27, 2025.  During the visit, discussion focused on fostering collaboration, and developing joint initiatives to strengthen DRR education and implementation in the field of health emergencies.

Prof. Chan presented the recent efforts conducted by CCOUC and GX Foundation. These DRR initiatives across Asia and Africa showcased advanced solutions to address public health risks in vulnerable regions, including Laos, Cambodia, Djibouti, Mauritania, and Senegal.  Prof. Saini Yang, the Executive Director of IRDR, introduced the upcoming IRDR activities at GP2025 and invited CCOUC to share their innovations and cases.  

In further discussion, a pilot study on health emergencies and DRR education was explored. This topic is one of the priorities in the IRDR Action Plan 2025-2027. It is expected that this initiative will take advantage of the previous CCOUC courses and intend to enhance the capacity building in broader stakeholders. The training syllabus, toolkits, workshops and a virtual knowledge-sharing platform may be the deliverables of this initiative.  

IRDR ICoE CCOUC has been very active in IRDR Community. In the IRDR Phase I, their contributions to IRDR missions includes special reports, working papers and training workshops. CCOUC has committed to the continuous partnership with IRDR in the new phase and look forward to more productive collaborations.