Course syllabus

Inriktning och samordning i samband med katastrofhantering
Direction and Coordination in Disaster Management

VRSN10, 7,5 credits, A (Second Cycle)

Valid for: 2015/16
Decided by: Education Board C
Date of Decision: 2015-04-15

General Information

Main field: Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation.
Compulsory for: MKAT1
Elective for: RH4
Language of instruction: The course will be given in English

Aim

Learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

Competences and skills
For a passing grade the student must

Judgement and approach
For a passing grade the student must

Contents

Field description

Direction and coordination is here regarded as effects needed for making the best use of the capacity of the resources which are engaged in the management of a disaster, i.e. meeting the aid requirements. Direction entails orientation of available resources towards formulated goals. Coordination entails adapting sub-goals and activities to each other with the purpose of making the best use of the capacity of the resources.

An epistemological standpoint is that disaster management is characterized by complexity and uncertainty, which affects decision-making.

Direction and coordination can be achieved in several ways. Two of these are command & control and collaboration. Command & control achieves direction and coordination through the authority of one entity over other entities. Collaboration achieves direction and coordination through agreement between entities with mutually equal authority. Closely associated to these concepts is leadership. Leadership includes aspects such as ethics, norms, motivation, trust and to make the best of the abilities of the individual/group. Leadership entails relations between humans which enable command & control and collaboration.

Course components


The main components of the course consist of:

The course content is applicable nationally as well as internationally and suitable for those who are interested in working with issues concerning direction and coordination in emergency and disaster management on different levels of society. Examples of associated bodies are central, regional and local authorities, health care, rescue services, private companies and humanitarian organizations.

The course includes mandatory individual homework and group project work, which are mainly based on case studies. The project work is to be presented orally as well as in writing, the latter in the form of a report.

Examination details

Grading scale: TH
Assessment: Group assignment (2.5 hp, pass/fail) and individual assignments (5 hp)

Admission

Admission requirements:

The number of participants is limited to: 40
Selection: Guaranteed admission for students at the Master's Programme in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation. Selection rules for the remaining places: priority is given to students firstly at the Programme Risk Management and Safety Engineering and secondly at the Fire Safety Engineering Programme at LTH. To distinguish between students from the same programme, number of credits and results on the programme will be used.

Reading list

Contact and other information

Course coordinator: Christian Uhr, christian.uhr@risk.lth.se
Course coordinator: Olof Ekman, olof.ekman@msb.se
Further information: Group assignments and seminars require active participation. Each group member must individually be able to account for the content of the project assignment. If a group member does not fulfil the demands of the group or ignores hers/his commitment, she/he can be reassigned to another group or get a fail result.