PhD course Integrated Fire Management

Course Information

Introduction

Integrated landscape fire management requires an overview of several disciplines. Therefore, the PyroLife Innovative Training Network contains four PhD courses based on understanding three aspects of landscape fire: 1) climate, risks and impact, 2) human dimensions and planning aspects, 3) science-policy interaction. These three courses are followed by a fourth course 4) integrated fire management, where the way forward towards building and implementing an integrated fire management is discussed and developed. This is the final course of this four-PhD-course series, focusing on integrated fire management.

Description

Fire behavior is becoming globally more extreme and wildfires more prevalent in previously less-fire prone regions. This challenge cannot be solved with the traditional mono-disciplinary approach of fire suppression. There is a critical need to change fire management from fire resistance to landscape resilience: Living with fire. Achieving this integrated fire management requires inter- and transdisciplinary research based on four axes of diversity: combining cross-geography, cross-risk, and cross-sector approaches while embracing social diversity.

The goal of this PhD course is to bring people with different scientific backgrounds together to discuss challenges and solutions of achieving an integrated approach. Through invited talks, interactive discussions, group work and field visits you will work on a range of topics relevant to integrated fire management, including lessons learned from other fields. In small groups coached by an international expert in the field, you will develop a perspective on a subtopic of integrated fire management, illustrated with a core visual, to be submitted for publication. As such, participants will work on specific topics in pyrogeography and wildland fire science, but with the aim of an integrated vision in mind. At the end of the course, we will return to the questions what is integrated fire management, what is the way forward, and how does your work will contribute to this way forward. Course activities and lodging is arranged in a single location, to facilitate networking and making informal connections outside of the official schedule.

Central to the groupwork and the course discussions will be the question to what extent lessons learned in a specific context are local or whether they are universal or global, and the question of the diversity of knowledge and people needed for this topic.

This is a 3-ECTS (84 hours) PhD course, for which the plenary portion takes place in Ede, The Netherlands (76 hours). For work-life balance considerations, the program is scheduled such that travel to and from the venue may be done during weekdays, and one day of free time is planned during the course itself. Participants are expected to dedicate 8 hours to prepare for the course in two ways: 1) to prepare insights/lessons that others can learn from your own research that are relevant for integrated fire management, and 2) to read materials relevant to the group assignment.

Course Structure

This course covers 3 ECTS (84 hours)

more information on how to prepare will be sent at least three weeks before the course starts

Learning goals

• To place your research into the broader context of Integrated Fire Management
• To apply lessons from other scientific disciplines to Integrated Fire Management
• To translate integrated thinking into a scientific perspective paper on a sub-topic within Integrated Fire Management
• To make (formal and informal) connections with junior and senior people from a range of geographic, disciplinary and sectoral backgrounds

Central to the course are two recurring themes: 1) Diversity: what diversity of knowledge and people is required in integrated fire management? 2) What should be determined locally, and what knowledge and methods are universally or globally applicable

Target

This course covers the integration of knowledge and lessons from a range of different disciplines across the social sciences, environmental sciences and engineering. We therefore target PhD candidates working on integrated fire management, as well as PhD candidates working on specific social, environmental or engineering aspects who are interested in placing their work in a broader inter- and transdisciplinary context. It is not required to have followed a PyroLife course before, yet it is required to work on a landscape fire related topic and be interested in contributing to integrated fire management.