2009 Summer Academy on social vulnerability

Tipping points in humanitarian crises

26 July – 01 August 2009 at Schloss Hohenkammer

The Summer Academy provides impulses for vulnerability research. Its objective is to analyse the gaps that exist in this field in science, politics and working practice, and to develop potential solutions. This involves close cooperation between experts from industrialised, emerging and developing countries. The 2009 Academy built on the results of previous years, the graduates of 2008 having drafted a policy paper on the subject of environmental migration.

2009 Summer Academy
 
This year, some 20 young scientists from all over the world (including Ethiopia, South Africa, Cameroon, Japan, India, New Zealand and Indonesia) and six of our seven chairholders (MRF-UNU Chair on Social Vulnerability) considered the interaction of climate change and possible humanitarian crises. The concept of “tipping points”, which describes the juncture at which crises may be triggered, needs to be better understood and given greater consideration in climate research.

From knowledge to practice
 
This year’s Dean of the Academy, Professor Tom Downing of the Stockholm Environment Institute (Oxford), attached great importance to new, interactive learning methods that enable participants to develop not just at a scientific level but also in terms of group dynamics. In order to achieve this goal, the participants were given a particularly realistic task to complete in a limited time in the form of a simulation exercise. They had to persuade a committee of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to include “Tipping Points in Humanitarian Crises” in its forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report. To achieve this, various tools were developed, including a “scoping paper”, persuasive short presentations, and a press release. The very different scientific perspectives of the participants from a host of different disciplines – ranging from anthropology and economics to geography – had to be combined in a series of compact working sessions. Some groups discussed until deep into the night.

The highlight of this process was a major concluding presentation, heard by senior professors headed by Professor Susan Cutter (University of South Carolina) and an external expert of the UN-ISDR (International Strategy on Disaster Reduction), Geneva. The participants presented a concise and logical concept, with the “hot systems approach” providing a new tool for the Academy. This approach makes it easier to understand crises and upheavals at an early stage. If the manifold causes are considered and monitored in their systemic contexts, symptoms can be correctly diagnosed more swiftly.
The principles devised at the Academy are now to be developed further on a sound scientific basis.

Munich, 5 August 2009