Published works

This report is a scoping study of the challenges of individual and inter-operational capability needs of first response, support and recovery agencies in a context of collaborative response to complex emergencies and disaster events.   

Effective emergency and disaster management requires multiple agencies and organisations from all levels of government and the private sector to work together.  Interoperability between these entities is essential for efficient and effective service delivery.  This report examines a range of options for defining interoperability needs among first response groups and those whose role is at a secondary and tertiary level.    

The report begins by detailing the way in which interoperability is currently defined and evidence of the variability in the way in which the term is interpreted.  It follows with an examination of the various ways in which emergency and disaster management agencies have attempted to achieve interoperability.  This includes a review of the Department of Homeland Security’s Interoperability Continuum and the way in which it is used to identify capability needs and gaps in US disaster response, and the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles Programme’s Joint Decision Model which aims to assist the decision making process between UK fire, police and ambulance services to improve interoperability during the emergency response phase.  It then considers two international case studies: one where interoperability’ may have been more absent than present; the other a relative success.  Finally, the report concludes with a discussion of suggested challenges for examining interoperability needs and presents conceptual frameworks and trigger questions to guide examination of solutions grounded in the needs of end-users.