PANDEM

Pandemic Risk & Emergency Management

Pandemic Risk and Emergency Management, PANDEM (Grant Agreement number: 652868), is a Coordination and Support action funded by the Horizon 2020 Secure Societies Programme (H2020-DRS-2014/2015) under the topic: Crisis management 4: Feasibility study for strengthening capacity-building for health and security protection in case of large-scale pandemics – Phase I Demo.

Research on the action began in September 2015 and the project has an 18-month implementation plan.

The European Union (EU) faces a growing health security threat posed by pandemics due to the convergence of risk factors driving disease emergence, amplification and dissemination of diseases with pandemic potential. Protecting the health and security of citizens in the EU in the face of these pandemic threats requires a coherent response by all stakeholders.

PANDEM project has several objectives:

• To contribute to the reduction in the health, socio-economic and security consequences of future pandemics so that society will be better prepared at regional, national, EU and global level.

• To focus on the needs and requirements of users and first responders across the spectrum of pandemic risk management. Given the cross-border and multi-sectoral context of the health and security challenge for building pandemic risk management capacity, a systems-based methodology will be applied, and the outcome will be developed for use in a pan-European setting.

• To identify innovative concepts to strengthen capacity-building for pandemic risk and emergency management in the EU.

The overall objective is to reduce morbidity, mortality, environmental and economic damage from future pandemics by identifying improvement needs for technologies, procedures and systems. Specific attention is being given to enhancing capacity for collaboration on cross-border risk assessment, response and recovery at regional, national and EU level. As pandemics are global events, the project is also looking at the needs for strengthening pandemic management beyond Europe and how the EU can support capacity at international level.

The specific objectives of the project are to:

• Assess current practice, tools and systems for pandemic management at national, EU and global level in priority areas including risk assessment and surveillance, communication and public information, governance and legal frameworks;

• Identify gaps and improvement needs through consultation with users and stakeholders;

• Identify and describe innovative solutions for capacity strengthening, efficient use of resources and better integration;

• Identify and describe demonstration concepts and future research and development needs to be integrated in a roadmap for the phase II demonstration project (PANDEM-2).

The project is building on previous research and development efforts and will provide recommendations for DG Enterprise and DG Santé, in addition to other EU DGs and agencies at a national level.