The course hosted by the University of Bucharest proposes an innovative approach towards vulnerability. It brings together experts from geography (climate change, geomorphology), engineering, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, who will direct their efforts to provide practical learning actions that support the development of competencies and skills for all interested in understanding the chained relationships between susceptibility-hazard-impact-vulnerability-resilience in a changing world.

Vulnerability is the most important predictive variable in the risk equation, but evaluating the best objective approach to quantify it is challenging. Significant efforts have been made to measure vulnerability for the past thirty years. Still, the field of vulnerability assessments has been dominated by hierarchical rather than inductive approaches.

The programme aims to prepare a new generation of European scientists against an advanced understanding of how global changes (represented by climate, environmental, and socio-economical aspects) relate to complex vulnerability patterns associated with risks in Europe, by:

1. providing skills and knowledge in the field of hazard, susceptibility, and vulnerability assessments for students from different parts of Europe and Africa; 
2. exploring the dynamics and outcomes of challenge-based learning approaches in geosciences and geospatial projects; 
3. identifying and modeling vulnerability-impact relations across different impacts, starting from the impact chain (UNDRR 2022) of multi-hazard situations, in an attempt to bridge the gap between vulnerability analyses that describe only patterns and the ones that produce a quantitative value; 
4. differentiating between vulnerability-sensitivity and susceptibility of natural and human features to produce bias-(more) free vulnerability assessments; 
5. identify individual-collective risk perception and predict coping patterns for changing environmental conditions.

The programme consists of both virtual courses and workshops and a 5-day field-learning activity, where students can deepen the knowledge and skills acquired during the virtual component and apply them in a challenge-based learning environment. The program's online component will consist of 5 sessions spread across five weeks, with academics from eight universities (in Romania, Greece, Italy, Sweden, the UK, Switzerland, Uganda, and South Africa) and invited speakers from different research institutes in Romania. It will be strongly connected with the physical component, with a duration of 5 days, that will take place in the Buzau Mountains, Romania, a natural laboratory for an immersive understanding of geohazard dynamics and vulnerability changes.

The physical part will consist of workshops, lectures, seminars, and in situ work, combining innovative ways of learning and teaching, including research-based learning and challenge-based approaches, to tackle major theoretical and practical research challenges. Interactions with tutors with complementary physical and social sciences backgrounds will add value to students' theoretical and methodological knowledge. The proposed training on the complex vulnerability topic will significantly strengthen research in spatial risk assessments, risk perception, and behavior of vulnerable groups before, during, and after hazard strikes.

The program bridges the gap between science and practice by co-creating and co-developing transnational and transdisciplinary curricula and involving stakeholders, local communities, and policymakers in the educational process. Active stakeholders’ participation from the Emergency Department of Romania will highlight bottlenecks in DRR actions at different levels of disaster governance, which will help communities confront the impacts of future environmental changes.

By capitalizing on local knowledge, students will better identify common cognitive biases that complicate understanding probability and shape the link between risk and vulnerability perception and disaster coping behaviors. Research outcomes will increase the wealth of existing knowledge and transdisciplinary evidence to help policymakers and risk managers in their innovation process at all stages of the extended Disaster Risk Management cycle: prevention, reduction, preparedness, response, and recovery. 

The physical part is field-based and will be hosted at the Pătârlagele Natural Hazards Research Center (Romanian Academy, Institute of Geography) in the Vrancea seismic region (Curvature Carpathians of Romania), between 7-11 April 2025. We aim to use the Vrancea seismic region's field ‘lab’ to better understand the emerging vulnerabilities in coping with uncertainty from interactions between environmental and human components. 

The training programme will fully exploit trainers' complementary expertise and stimulate knowledge transfer within the network. Secondly, the physical component will complete and apply the theoretical achievements to practical situations in the field, in the environmental context represented by slope instabilities and large earthquakes triggered mass movements of the Buzau Mountains, Romania.

The research and training activities are strongly interwoven into three main parts: theoretical background, training activities in the form of field trips, and laboratory activities/ computer processing.

The list below indicates the main subjects that will be discussed and the main activities in the field and the lab. These are organized as Learning Packages that focus on specific risk components:

Learning Package 1: Hazard

• presenting various techniques available to investigate the environmental conditions contributing to related natural disasters; learning to acquire and verify input data, develop and validate models; using maps to explore, interact with, and understand geographic environments in the hazard domain; assess uncertainties and designs of impact chains for understanding the systemic nature of risk in multi-hazard evaluation.
• remote sensing and geophysical surveys performed in the target area to enhance spatial analysis using complex GIS and geostatistical software, focusing on the conditions that contribute to natural hazards.
• understanding hazard chains (cascading hazards) and cascade development of events (seismic effects, mass movements, avalanching-erosion-deposition, dam formation, breaching impact waves, flash floods-debris flows).
• quantitative field measurements on the prospection of mass movements (RTK-GNSS, UAV, terrestrial, and airborne laser scans).

Learning Package 2: Vulnerability and Societal Impact

• remote sensing and geophysical surveys will be performed in the target area to enhance spatial analysis using complex GIS and geostatistical software, targeting the acquisition of datasets necessary for vulnerability assessments.
• mapping and quantifying vulnerability versus perceived risk and vulnerability.
• simulating risk mitigation measures for identifying important uncertainties in decision-making and developing local coping strategies.

With this dichotomic structure, the students will be able to choose the package that sparks their interest the most or the one they believe will complete their knowledge and skills.

The virtual component will run between 3-31 March 2025 (5 sessions) and will be preparatory to set the basis for a proper understanding of the physical part by introducing students to the theoretical background of natural hazard dynamics related to climate change and emphasizing the vulnerability of exposed physical systems and human communities.

The teaching curricula will start by setting the scene in climate change, reflected in changing hazard dynamics and focusing on changing vulnerability patterns against the change-related uncertainty conditions surrounding human society. The interaction between experts with different but complementary physical and social sciences backgrounds will help students better understand the chained relationships between susceptibility-hazard-impact-vulnerability-resilience.

An introductory lesson on risk perception and human behavior before, during, and after disasters will change the approach perspective from human society and help students understand the link between vulnerability, risk perception, and coping behaviors.

The virtual component will include live presentations, challenge-based learning approaches, and asynchronous training tools such as multimedia material and recorded lectures. It will also include a virtual field trip and introduction to the site selected for the physical component to familiarize students with issues trickled into the field. This approach aims to help students during the physical component to be more focused on comprehending new methods and techniques and being acquainted with environmental issues. 

3 March 2025, 16:00 – 18:00 CET

• Lecture: Anthropocene, Stefan Dorondel and Iuliana Armas (University of Bucharest)

10 March 2025, 16:00 – 18:00 CET

• Lecture: State of the climate,  Alasdair Skelton (Stockholm University)

17 March 2025, 16:00 – 18:40 CET

• Lecture: Sea level changes – challenges to coastal areas and adaptation methods, Niki Evelpidou (EKPA), Anna Karkani (EKPA), Giannis Saitis (EKPA)
• Lecture: Community vulnerability assessments in Scotland, Ria Dunkley (University of Glasgow)

24 March 2025, 16:00 – 18:40 CET

• Lecture: Deciphering the climatic and tectonic signals in landscape evolution of active orogens, Marta Della Seta (Sapienza Università di Roma)
• Lecture: Changing geohazards in response to tectonic and climatic forcing, Marc-Henri Derron (Université de Lausanne)

31 March 2025, 16:00 – 18:40 CET

• Lecture: Dynamics of geohazards and disasters in fragile coupled landscapes under changing climate, Bamutaze Yazidhi (Makerere University, Uganda)
• Lecture: How to increase the resilience of landscapes and communities to climate change impacts, Jasper Knight (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)