Dr George Carayannopoulos

Dr George Carayannopoulos completed his PhD in 2017 on crisis coordination, exploring the response to both the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires and the 2011 Queensland floods. As large-scale events, they epitomise the challenges of crisis management in Australia, with George’s research examining how each state confronted the disasters from political and operational perspectives. His PhD specifically framed the understanding of these events through a model that emphasised seven important factors. Foremost among them was a whole of government response, which involves public service agencies working across portfolio boundaries to achieve shared goals. The other key mediators were crisis management, leadership, coordination, organisational culture, social capital and institutions. The individual and combined impacts of these mediators defined the outcomes of these crisis events.

George is now the head of Research and Development in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. He has written a book titled Disaster Management in Australia: Government Coordination in a Time of Crisis that examines government coordination when faced with large scale crises, as well as regularly featuring as a media commentator for SBS and the BBC. His PhD research was featured in Hazard Note 44 – Rhetoric or reality: crisis coordination.