BDEM: Big Data for Emergency Management

Key Aspects

The BDEM concept and approach behind the main objective focuses on the following three key aspects and support measures:

1. Mutual learning and capacity building: Through mutual research, training and exchange of best practices in partner institutions, in particular through course projects, curriculum, learning materials, hackathons and workshops, as well as at individual level, through research teamwork, subgroups and short visits. 
2. Creating professional basis:  The BDEM project will draw up annual summaries of their field of study which also looks ahead. There will be a combination of "state-of-the-art" descriptions and scenarios for future development. This may be a way to provide professional direction for the BDEM as a whole, but can also act for designing more focused subgroups within the project with a long or short life span.  
3. Shaping new ways for cooperation:  The partnership will also have dissemination activities of various kinds to ensure that outcomes are propagated and discussed. BDEM will not be static, but will ensure that the activity and involvement of external experts to get new impulses and disseminate results beyond BDEM.

Primary Objective

The primary objective of the BDEM project is to develop a highly visible international partnership to share best practices and, build and strengthen research - training cooperation among BDEM partners in big data and emergency management.

Secondary Objectives

• To develop and implement creative workshops in Norway;
• To cooperate on curriculum development and implementation of innovative Master level courses and course modules;
• To plan and develop research project proposals and grant applications for international research projects, to be submitted to various international research grant organisations;
• To produce joint survey papers and popular articles of high standards, the publication of which will further motivate the development and continuation of a long-term, international partnership;
• To establish and encourage knowledge transfer through researcher, faculty and student mobility.

Organisation

The BDEM research and education network is coordinated by Western Norway Research Institute and will run for a term of three years. The project aims through a cooperation between Western Norway Research Institute, University of Bergen and six world class universities from the USA, Japan and Hong Kong, to establish a long term partnership where excellent education is to be embedded in excellent research in big data and emergency management.Master students with relevant backgrounds will be integrated into the partners' ongoing research with academic publications as the final goal. A high quality of student and faculty mobility will be established. This will result in enhanced education and the development of expertise into Norwegian academia, e.g. BDEM curricula into the professional training of research education of tomorrow's data scientists, researchers and policy-makers.It will also result in deeper research collaboration, which in turn will enrich the educational track of Norwegian Master students. The increased contact and mobility will also help the students' possibilities of getting collaborators and relevant hosts for their research stays in the USA, Japan and Hong Kong.

Partners:

• Western Norwegian Resarch Institute
• University of Bergen
• The University of Tokyo
• National Institute of Informatics (Japan)
• Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• George Mason University
• Illinois Institute of Technology
• San Diego State University

Key Facts

• Acronym:      BEDM
• Start date:    01/04/2017
• Duration:     36 months
• End date:     31/03/2020
• Consortium:    8 partners (2 from Norway, 2 from Japan, 3 from USA and 1 from Hong Kong)

Project manager: Rajendra Akerkar, Vestlandsforskning

UiB coordinator: Andreas L Opdahl

Web page: https://www.bigdata.vestforsk.no/#intro

Source: Rajendra Akerkar and the team at WNRI