The European Union's  Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency has underwritten a new academic network to promote disaster preparedness in European cities. The project, known as the Academic Network for Disaster Resilience to Optimise Educational Development (ANDROID), will receive €790,000 from the European Commission.

The project will be led by two experts currently working at the University of Salford in Manchester, England. Dilanthi Amaratunga is head of the University's Centre for Disaster Resilience and Richard Haigh is director of the center's Disaster Mitigation and Reconstruction program.

The program has been inspired by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) ongoing campaign 'Making Cities Resilient.'  Mr. Haigh is quoted on the UNISDR website as saying that "the complex nature of disasters had led to recognition that risk reduction through increased resilience will require a strategy that is inter-disciplinary." He went on to add that "true inter-disciplinarity only occurs where a number of separate disciplines surrender their own concepts and goals, and collectively define themselves by reference to a common set of strategic concepts and goals."

ANDROID will initially consist of 64 partners drawn from European higher education institutes, local and national governments, and international organizations. They will eventually be joined by three non-European institutions from Australia, Canada and Sri Lanka.