“HERoS – Health Emergency Response in Interconnected Systems” is a project awarded in the EU Horizon 2020 SC1-PHE-CORONAVIRUS-2020. The PI and project leader of this project is Hanken University Helsinki. Dr. Kees Boersma from the Crisis Resilience Academy is the leader of the Work Package on multi-layered disaster governance; dr. Yiannis Kyratsis from the ISR is co-applicant. The consortium consists of 10 partners from 7 European countries. The project has a total budget of €2.8 M.; the budget for the Work Package on multi-layered governance is €365 K. The project website HERoS

HERoS assesses the Corona-virus outbreak of 2020. By beginning of February, numerous people all over the globe got infected, and the death toll continued to rise. As authorities and responders are struggling to contain the spread, news about mass quarantine camps or shortages of personal protective equipment threaten the health systems globally, fueled by rumors and mis-information. The disruptions of (medical) supply chains, the lack of capacity to treat patients and the spread of rumors fuel an atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust, hampering an effective response.

While traditional models of disease outbreaks largely focus on infection rates, new methods are needed to integrate behaviour from the bottom up, and integrated in macro-level models to coordinate the response world-wide. HERoS’ is a multi-disciplinary project and focusses on disaster logistics, modelling, social media analysis and crisis and disaster governance. To focus in the Work Package on multi-layered governance is related to establishing governance principles and protocols that enable a seamless coordination between policy makers, responding organizations, local communities and citizens’ initiatives, nationally and cross-border. In the first phase, this project will start with an analysis of current workflows and processes, systems, and principles. HERoS will provide a solid taxonomy of governance arrangements, and identify redundancies, bottlenecks and potential friction. From there, it will develop processes and guidance on how best governance practices for epidemics response embedded into humanitarian practice.

Partners

Hanken School of Economics – Finland; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Delft University of Technology – the Netherlands; The Open University – the UK; Nordic Healthcare Group – Finland; CBK Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences – Poland; Squadron – Poland; PCPM Polish Center for International Aid – Poland; ARTTIC Management and Consultancy; The Italian Red Cross – Italy; Project HOPE North Macedonia/China.