Why behavioural insights matter

The risk landscape in the EU is changing. New threats have emerged such as the Covid19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, while accelerating climate change leads to increases in extreme weather events and natural hazards such as droughts, wildfires, floods, and landslides with some regions exposed to multiple emergencies simultaneously. This increase and complexity of threats requires a heightened level of disaster preparedness and resilience from all actors and citizens in the EU.

To build a resilient Europe, we need to better understand citizens’ response to emergencies and investigate ways to stimulate constructive emergency behaviours, including preparedness and response.

How behavioural insights can help

Taking into account the shift in risk exposure, the European Commission issued a Recommendation and a Communication in 2023 to establish common goals to boost disaster resilience in the areas of civil protection. Five disaster resilience goals address the need to improve the capacity of the Union and its Member States to ‘Anticipate’, ‘Prepare’, ‘Alert’, ‘Respond’, and ‘Secure’ for and in the event of disasters and crises. Behavioural insights are particularly important for increasing awareness and preparedness of citizens, as stated under ‘Prepare’, to improve individual and societal resilience.

Behavioural factors are relevant both before (the ‘cold phase’) and during (the ‘hot phase’) a potential disaster. We are currently working on projects that address both these phases, and especially looking at factors that be addressed in the ‘cold phase’ and may positively impact resilience in the ‘hot phase’.

Ongoing projects

Encouraging disaster preparedness behaviour

Susceptibility to misinformation during disasters