Crisis 7 the Best of Risk & Crisis Communication Research

The field of risk and crisis communication has two major conferences for academics and practitioners to share our research — the International Risk and Crisis Communication series hosted every other year in Europe and the International Crisis and Risk Communication Association’s annual conference. These two conferences draw most of the very best scholars in risk and crisis communication and many great practitioners representing corporate, government, and non-governmental organizations. More importantly, we have created a supportive and inclusive community with such a great spirit of coopration, sharing, and fun that we all look forward to seeing our ‘tribe’ at each of these conferences.

#ECREACrisis7 has just wrapped up & we’ve all headed off in our relative directions around the world. I always feel energized and with more ideas than I can possibly follow through on when I leave this conference and this year had an inspiring collection of scholars and practitioners in #riskcommunication and #crisiscommunication.

Kristiania University College sent four of us to share our research and participate – Elisabeth Hasselström, Jon Martin Larsen, Grace Omondi, and me. For me, this was Kristiania’s first time for sending a contingent of PhD students to a risk and crisis conference and since I’m the Head of Programme for our PhD in Communication and Leadership I was so proud of each of our students. Unfortunately, my sessions conflicted with two of their presentations and I don’t think they believed me when I said that I had spies reporting back to me about their research. My ‘spies’ sent me pictures during their presentations and two days later were still reporting how impressed they were with our students.

One of the major themes emerging from this year’s conference was the importance of collaboration between practitioners and scholars. Ben Duncan and I had the chance to share some of our research talking about the challenges of preparing for crises in a cross-national world and the importance of bridging the gap between research and practice.

Thanks to Marina Ghersetti, Bengt Johansson, Pavel Rodin, Ph.D., and the whole team at the University of Gothenburg for putting on a great event.

A little recap of our experience and presentations….