New series

Resilience Matters webinar series

Name: Resilience Matters
Start: 0001-01-01
End: 0001-01-01
Location: National

Exploring disaster risk reduction and resilience

The Resilience Matters webinar series will focus on systems, environments and human factors that intersect to influence the varying levels of risk, harm and equity that people experience before, during and after a disaster.

Presenters from a variety of research, government and community backgrounds will be invited to provide their insights and perspectives as we seek to understand how we can reduce harm in these systems to reduce disaster risk and build resilience.

Throughout the series, we will build on these foundational concepts. Everyone is very welcome, whether you are an experienced practitioner or are new to these concepts, or somewhere in between.

Look out for new webinars as they are developed and added to the events calendar.

Coming up

Save the date: 1pm-2pm, Thursday 18 July 2025

AIDR is delighted to welcome Dr Bhiamie Williamson to speak about Indigenous knowledge and resilience.

Details coming soon.

Past webinars

Includes webinar notes, speaker information, recordings and additional resources

Webinar 3 - 23 July 2025 - The policy context from global frameworks to national documents

AIDR welcomes Andrew Minack, First Assistant Coordinator General - Policy and Governance, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

NEMA coordinates Australia's commitments under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, and Second National Action Plan.

Andrew will discuss how these frameworks and the action plan guide the Australian Government's approach to disaster risk reduction and building resilience, and the work that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is doing to implement them.

Andrew will also highlight some of the opportunities and challenges in making resilience and disaster risk reduction matter at a national level as NEMA seeks to effectively apply global priorities in national, state and regional contexts across Australia.

Guest Speaker:

Andrew Minack

First Assistant Coordinator General - Policy and Governance, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA)

Andrew has had an extensive public sector career, working at an executive level in a range of Federal, state and local government agencies. He currently serves as the First Assistant Coordinator-General responsible for disaster resilience and recovery policy within the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). Prior to his role at NEMA, he led the establishment and operation of the Corporate Division for the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing. He was also involved in the operational response to the COVID-19 pandemic and served as Deputy Secretary at Emergency Management Victoria during the 2019/2020 bushfires.

Andrew has been involved in several highly complex reform projects in the public sector, in multiple agencies. He has also held executive roles in Victoria Police, where he was responsible for corporate strategy, stakeholder engagement, and performance improvement.

Outside of his professional life, Andrew enjoys surfing, walking in the Scottish Highlands, and is a tragic Richmond Football Club supporter.

Host:

John Richardson
Executive Director, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience

Webinar resources:

Webinar slides

Webinar 2 - 11 June 2025 - Thinking systemically about disaster risk

This webinar helped participants to start to think systemically about the interconnected, and cascading nature of disaster risk.

AIDR welcomed Professor Lauren Rickards, Director of the La Trobe Climate Change Adaptation Lab. Lauren drew on a range of systems ideas in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation research to explore what systemic risk means and why it matters for our work.

For the most part, our existing lifestyles and daily activities are heavily dependent on largely unseen and interconnected systems for the delivery of essential services when we need them (e.g. energy, water, food, health and education services, transport, and communications). These systems reflect a chain of accumulated decisions and choices made over generations, in different circumstances and with different priorities.

Current approaches to disaster risk reduction are being challenged in a world of more frequent and compounding hazards. As the population and economy continue to grow, increasing exposure is creating complex interdependencies that are leading to more systemic vulnerabilities.

The United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction has identified that a linear approach to managing risk is no longer sufficient, given the systemic nature of disaster risk. We need to better understand the consequences of disasters, how these can cascade through systems, where the boundaries of systems lie, and where the fragility in the connections within and between systems lie.

Guest Speaker:

Professor Lauren Rickards
Director of the La Trobe Climate Change Adaptation Lab

Lauren is Director of the La Trobe Climate Change Adaptation Lab. With colleagues within and affiliated with the Lab, she is using innovative social research to examine: the impacts of climate change on the sectors of society that sustain us (including government, environment, agriculture, water, education, health and emergency management); the far-reaching implications of these impacts for our collective wellbeing; and the deep, multi-level adaptation required.

Primarily a geographer by training, Lauren was a Lead Author with the Australasia chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. She has a DPhil in Human Geography from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a BSc (Hons) in Ecology from the University of Melbourne.

Dr Neville Ellis
Manager of the Climate Adaptation Program

Neville Ellis is the Manager of the Climate Adaptation Program for the Western Australian emergency management sector, based within the Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He was formally a Contributing Author and Chapter Scientist on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5°C Special Report and has published research in various prestigious international journals. Neville is particularly interested in systemic risk and social-ecological resilience and their implications for emergency management.

Host:

John Richardson
Executive Director, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience

Webinar resources:

Webinar 1 - 16 April 2025 - Foundations of disaster risk reduction and Resilience

Follow up Q&A discussion

AIDR welcomes David Sanderson, Inaugural Judith Neilson Professor of Architecture UNSW, to launch the Resilience Matters webinar.

Starting with an overview of the history of risk, resilience and disaster risk reduction (DRR), David will unpack key concepts of DRR, and explore DRR in practice, with particular consideration given to vulnerable people and groups, climate change adaptation and sustainable development.

Guest Speaker:

David Sanderson
Inaugural Judith Neilson Professor of Architecture at UNSW

David has over 30 years’ experience working across the world in development and emergencies. He worked for 12 years in NGOs and consultancy in all regions before joining academia in 2006. David was Director of the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) at Oxford Brookes University 2006-2014. Between 2013-2014 he was a full time Visiting Professor at Harvard University.

David became the Inaugural Judith Neilson Chair of Architecture at UNSW in 2016. David has sat on several NGO and funding boards including the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Humanitarian Innovations Fund. He is author of the 2019 ODI/ALNAP Urban Humanitarian Response Good Practice Review and was co-editor of the 2016 IFRC World Disasters Report focusing on resilience. David holds a doctorate in development and disasters. As well as Australia, David has held (full) professorships in the UK and Norway and as well as the USA visiting professorships in Spain and France.

Kirsten Jenkins
Manager Community Safety, Maroondah City Council

Kirsten had a significant role in Nillumbik Shire Council’s response to the February 2009 bushfires that affected the municipality, both in community recovery and public health areas. She has completed a postgraduate diploma in Community and International Development. She has been to Haiti and Nepal following the earthquakes, as a Community Health delegate with the Australian Red Cross.

Since 2016, Kirsten has been the Community Safety Manager and Municipal Recovery Manager at Maroondah City Council in 2016. She played a lead role in the Council Covid recovery process as well as regularly supporting other councils during disasters such as January 2019-2020 bushfires.

Host:

John Richardson
Executive Director, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience

Webinar resources:

Webinar slides