This module aims to equip students with the tools required to plan, implement, present and evaluate primary research relating to risk and disaster reduction.

As a student on this module you will learn about the research project chain including the process for proposing research ideas, acquiring funding and approval for such work, logistical planning of fieldwork for both research and emergency response, designing your data collection strategy, practical techniques for fieldwork, presenting your own findings and placing them in context by being able to critique the work of others.

Through lectures, seminars, class discussions and exercises featuring examples relating to disaster risk reduction, and practical fieldwork experience  you will learn:

 

How to evaluate research from presentations and papers
 

How to write effective research, consultancy and funding proposals
 How to formulate the research question
  How to structure a literature review in a proposal
  How to assess resource needs
  Apportioning time and resources in a project
  What makes proposals attractive - and pitfalls to avoid
 
 

Research Presentation
 Audience-appropriate research communication through talks, papers, reports and posters
 
 

Effective data collection
 How quantitative and qualitative data research differs
  How to conduct interviews
  How to write surveys
  How to plan questionnaires
 
 

Fieldwork requirements
 Risk Assessment
  Fieldwork Ethics
 
 

Responsive fieldwork planning
 Participate in a simulated real-time event scenario run by practitioners:
  Real-time experience of logistical decision making in response to a disaster, led by current practitioners.
  What kind of decisions need to be made, how the decision process works, constraints imposed by lack of detailed information and the need for urgency, the need to balance planning and adaptability in response to the developing situation, and the importance of team work in a high-pressure environment.
 
 

Conducting Fieldwork