​The programme 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 it is challenging to evaluate the best objective approach to quantify it. 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 scientists against an advanced understanding of how global changes of the Anthropocene (related to climate, environmental, and socio-economical aspects) are concatenate within complex vulnerability patterns generating risks. High-level training facilities and scientific and technological excellence will empower the next generation of researchers to understand how these vulnerability changes can be assessed, modelled, and incorporated into sustainable risk management and disaster coping strategies 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 modelling 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;

The program 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 of Romania and Mexico.

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 proposed training on complex vulnerability will significantly strengthen research in spatial risk assessments. Ultimately, this vulnerability-related training will bolster the coping strategies of natural and human systems in a changing environment with the risk of increasingly severe and frequent natural and man-made disasters.

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 20 and 24 April 2026. We aim to use the Vrancea seismic region's field ‘lab’ to understand better 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 issues and activities scheduled 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 will be 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

• acquisition of datasets necessary for vulnerability assessments.
• untangling disasters through Impact Chains.
• understanding vulnerability dynamics based on an Enhanced Impact Chain-based approach
• simulating risk mitigation measures for identifying significant 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.

Take a look at a StoryMap created by one of the participants, capturing her experience during this BIP. 

The virtual component will run between 16-30 March 2026 (three sessions) and April 13 and 27 (two sessions). The first four sessions will be preparatory, setting 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 human communities. The last theoretical session will build on trained skills and acquired knowledge during the physical part.

The teaching curricula will start by setting the scene in understanding the human pressure in the Anthropocene and climate change reflected in changing hazard dynamics. The main topic will focus 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.

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 become more focused on comprehending new methods and techniques and being acquainted with environmental issues during the physical component so that they can better assimilate theoretical concepts. 

16 March 2026, 16:00 – 18:00 CET

• Lecture: Vulnerability in the Age of the Anthropocene, Stefan Dorondel and Iuliana Armas (University of Bucharest)

23 March 2026, 16:00 – 18:00 CET

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

30 March 2026, 16:00 – 18:00 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 to sea level changes in Scotland, Ria Dunkley (University of Glasgow)

13 April 2026, 16:00 – 18:00 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)

27 April 2026, 16:00 – 18:00 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)