People stay most connected with the place they live: their home. When disaster destroys a house, it destroys the present, future, and dreams of all the residents. The incidents even leave greater impacts on women, children, older people, persons with disabilities, low-income households, and gender-diverse groups.
But unfortunately, a significant proportion of homes are built without paying adequate attention to disaster resilience worldwide. It is high time to change the scenario now. Strategic action at the household and micro level can mitigate the overall disaster-induced risks and create a more resilient ecosystem. To address this, the UNDRR has set “Resilience Starts at Home” as the theme for this year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, October 13, 2026.
Among other measures, all household members need to be part of the planning and decision-making process for disaster risk reduction, have access to relevant information, become familiar with early warning systems, and know the appropriate protective actions to take during emergencies. At TVS, we uphold the motto “Weathering the Storm, Forging the Future“ and support these resolutions by participating in multiple EU-funded projects and developing tools and platforms. These efforts strengthen institutions, including governments, local authorities, communities, and cross-sectoral actors, to work at and target the micro-level. Among the projects, the following align closely with today’s theme.
CLIMAS: By creating an innovative problem-oriented climate adaptation Toolbox, co-designed with stakeholders, the Climate change citizens engagement toolbox for dealing with societal resilience (CLIMAS) project aims to support the transformation towards climate resilience. Using a value-based approach, design thinking methods, and citizen science mechanisms, TVS co-designed the toolbox with stakeholders in a way that anticipates possible tensions, points of controversy, and dilemmas and enables engagement strategies to develop a society 'resilient by design’.
C2IMPRESS: TVS developed a Spatial Multicriteria Decision Analysis (SMCDA) tool and disaster observation and monitoring portal, app, and platform for the Co-Creative Improved Understanding and Awareness of Multi-Hazard Risks for Disaster Resilient Society (C2IMPRESS) project. This project aims to bring a radical paradigm shift to disaster and hazard research and innovation by moving from a traditional ‘hazard-centric’ approach/ framework to a novel ‘place and people-centred’ integrated multi-hazard risk and resilience assessment framework.
TOGETHER: By fostering coordination among authorities, sectoral actors, businesses, and communities, before and during crises, the Towards enhanced coordination of disaster risk management and governance through a holistic framework for multi-level interaction and communication (TOGETHER) project aims to support better risk-informed decisions, turn information into actionable insights, and strengthen disaster risk management governance. TVS is developing a toolkit for the project that supports improved decision-making and will be tested through Public–Private–Civil Partnership (PPCP) in Norway, Greece, and Spain, with replication studies in Portugal and Türkiye.
JUST-COAST: The Justice-Driven Integrated Transformation for Climate-Resilient Coastal Futures (JUST-COAST) project aims to design just and systemic climate change adaptation solutions to demonstrate, replicate, and scale in multiple highly vulnerable European coastal locations. To strengthen climate resilience in these locations, the project will co-create inclusive adaptation pathways, deploy nature-based and hybrid solutions, and develop early-warning systems and resilience platforms. TVS will lead the development of agentic AI solutions for modelling, monitoring, and stakeholder interaction, design and deploy the JUST-COAST Resilience Platform and Data Space Services, develop the Circular Finance methodology under the CertaFin model, and manage the Data Management Plan and governance strategy to ensure secure and FAIR data use throughout the project lifecycle.
RESILIACT: To address the increasingly complex and interconnected disaster risks of Europe driven by climate change, urbanisation, and systemic dependencies, the Cross-regional action for enhanced impact forecasting, early warning, and resilient governance (RESILIACT) project plans to develop and validate an operational and web-based platform. The platform will be co-created through a Public–Private–Civil Partnership (PPCP) and demonstrated across Oslo, Reykjavík, Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. TVS is leading the development and validation efforts of this platform, enabling multi-hazard impact forecasting, impact-based early warning, and anticipatory decision-making. Through these efforts, the RESILIACT project directly contributes to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, and the EU Climate Adaptation Strategy.
By participating in and proactively involving ourselves with these initiatives, TVS is empowering people to take part in decision-making, access information, and receive early warnings in a comprehensive manner, and contributing to sustainable disaster risk reduction.
