Improving Community Resilience and Sustainability Through Operational Research Capacity Building in Southeast Asia (CREST-OR)

运筹学在实现发展中国家的可持续发展目标和灾害风险管理目标方面具有巨大潜力。然而，大多数官方发展援助国家缺乏开发和应用相关OR方法论的研究能力。CREST-OR项目是英国在OR领域的三所顶尖大学-肯特、兰开斯特和南安普顿-与四个东南亚(海)国家-越南、印度尼西亚、老挝和柬埔寨-的知名大学合作的项目。CREST-OR将建立英国和SEA的长期合作伙伴关系，以建设OR方法的研究能力，提高社区对自然灾害的复原力，并实现国家可持续发展目标和DRM目标。SEA合作伙伴将受益于提高他们的运筹学研究能力，以及在项目合作伙伴之间形成新的机构联系。英国的合作伙伴将受益于在国际发展和灾害管理挑战中应用或的知识的增加。该项目将通过国家和地方各级的政策制定者和实践者(如应急机构、地方当局和发展非政府组织)的参与，支持海洋国家的长期倡议。CREST-OR将建设利用或解决四个重点领域的挑战的能力：灾害管理、粮食安全、弹性交通基础设施和智慧城市。这些领域是与SEA合作伙伴根据英国研究人员内部的现有合作以及最重要的是根据各自国家的发展优先事项确定的。在海洋国家，快速的经济增长和基础设施发展没有得到足够有力的规划的支持。社会和环境优先事项经常被放弃，而人口增长加剧了发展挑战。气候变化现在正在增加灾害风险，并有可能破坏发展成就，社会中最贫穷和最脆弱的部分感受到的影响最大。或提供一套强大的工具，支持政府机构和非政府组织更知情、更循证的决策，以应对与灾害风险及其对粮食供应、基础设施和城市发展的影响有关的挑战。通过在这些领域建立或研究能力，CREST-OR将有助于实现几个联合国可持续发展目标：SDG2(零饥饿)、SDG9(工业、创新和基础设施)、SDG11(可持续城市和社区)、SDG13(气候行动)和优先事项2(加强灾害风险治理)。该项目将开展以下能力建设活动：-能力评估，以查明教育和研究在认识和使用OR方法方面的差距，特别是与可持续发展目标有关的差距，并了解CREST-OR将在其中运作的政策格局。-三个讲习班，包括：制定相关研究项目优先清单的范围研讨会，这将构成CREST-OR研究议程的基础；一个学术讲习班，为不同职业阶段的海洋研究人员提供专门的研究培训课程；最后一次研讨会，旨在分享已制定的研究项目提案，接收最终用户反馈，并规划未来的研究战略。-借调英国合作大学的SEA早期职业研究人员制定研究提案，参与研究活动，并接受高级和情景运筹学方法(如模拟、优化)的培训。-英国学者对SEA机构的短期访问，以加强对当地背景的了解，举办简短的培训研讨会，-支持海洋研究人员参加英国海洋研究协会年会，以促进他们参与国际辩论，并将他们纳入更广泛的研究社区。-开发一个研究网络和知识交流网站。

Operational Research (OR) has significant potential to contribute to meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and disaster risk management (DRM) objectives of developing countries. However, most ODA countries lack the research capacity to develop and apply relevant OR methodologies.The CREST-OR project is a collaboration between three of the UK's leading universities in the field of OR - Kent, Lancaster, and Southampton - and prominent universities in four Southeast Asian (SEA) countries - Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, and Cambodia. CREST-OR will establish a long-term UK-SEA partnership to build research capacity in OR methodologies, improve community resilience to natural disasters, and achieve national SDGs and DRM objectives. SEA partners will benefit from advancing their OR research capabilities, and the formation of new institutional links among project partners. UK partners will benefit from increasing knowledge in the application of OR to international development and disaster management challenges. The project will support longstanding initiatives in SEA countries through engagement of policy-makers and practitioners at national and local levels (e.g. emergency response agencies, local authorities, and development NGOs).CREST-OR will build capacity in the use of OR for solving challenges in four focal areas: disaster management, food security, resilient transport infrastructure and smart cities. These areas were identified with the SEA partners based on existing collaborations within the UK researchers and, most importantly, on development priorities of their respective countries. In SEA countries, rapid economic growth and infrastructural development has not been supported by sufficiently robust planning. Social and environmental priorities have been regularly forfeited, while population growth has intensified development challenges. Climate change is now raising disaster risks and threatening to derail development achievements, with the greatest effect felt by the poorest and most vulnerable segments of society. OR offers a powerful set of tools to support more informed, evidence-based decision-making by government agencies and NGOs to address challenges related to disaster risk and its impact on food supplies, infrastructure and cities development. By building OR research capacity in these areas, CREST-OR will contribute to address several UN SDGs: SDG2 (Zero Hunger), SDG9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), SDG11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG13 (Climate Action) and Priority-2 (Strengthening Disaster Risk Governance) of the Sendai Framework.The project will undertake the following capacity building activities:- Capacity assessments to identify educational and research gaps in the knowledge and use of OR methodologies, especially in relation to the SDGs, and understand the policy landscape in which CREST-OR will operate.- Three workshops, including: a Scoping Workshop to develop a prioritised list of relevant research projects, which will form the basis of CREST-OR research agenda; an Academic Workshop with specialised research training sessions for SEA researchers at different career stages; a Final Workshop to share developed research project proposals, receive end-user feedback and plan future research strategy.- Secondment of SEA Early Career Researcher in UK partner universities to develop research proposals, take part in research activites, and receive training in advanced and contextualised OR methods (e.g. simulation, optimisation).- Short visits of UK academics to SEA institutions to consolidate understanding of local context, run short training workshops, and support the development of OR curricula and research units.- Attendance of SEA researchers to the UK OR Society annual conference to facilitate their engagement in international debates and integrate them into a wider research community.- Development of a website for research networking and knowledge exchange.