Developing an Office of Disaster Research and Innovation
A Process, Questions, and Options for the National Disaster and Emergency Management University
ResearchPublished Apr 30, 2025
Researchers analyzed federal research offices to propose how the National Disaster and Emergency Management University could develop such an office to identify, synthesize, and translate research to help the institute decide where to expend resources, become more efficient, and engage in proven-effective activities. They identified decision points, options, and considerations for the process of developing this office and ensuring positive impact.
The synthesis and translation of research on emergency management (EM) could inform EM practice, thereby reducing the number and impact of disasters and improving how EM addresses these impacts and needs. Much information exists but is not organized in a way that would facilitate synthesis. But the hazardscape is ever expanding: More hazards are threatening more and more-vulnerable places more severely. EM needs evidence to help it focus where time, effort, and resources are expended; gain greater efficiency; and engage in activities proven to yield the greatest positive impact.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) National Disaster and Emergency Management University (NDEMU) is the premier training institution for EM—the people who create frameworks for reducing vulnerability to threats and hazards and coping with disaster and who coordinate preparation, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation activities. NDEMU also increasingly fulfills thought leadership and convening functions for EM. NDEMU plans to create an Office of Disaster Research and Innovation (ODRI) to identify, synthesize, and translate research into practice. The office would be something of an internal think tank at the intersection of research and education, training, and practice.
Researchers analyzed existing research offices like this planned ODRI and propose a process NDEMU could use to develop the office. They identified a set of relevant programs, reviewed publicly available documentation, and interviewed representatives from 22 offices doing similar work to identify key steps and decision points in the process of developing an effective ODRI organization and ensuring that it will have positive impact.
Key Findings
- The federal research offices in the sample varied considerably in every basic office element, including mission, organizational structure, staffing, and budget.
- Every office did have these basic elements.
- Interviewees consistently described how important the connections between elements were to a research office’s success.
- Interviewees indicated that mission and budget were the most-important elements of federal research offices in the sample. It is critical that these two basic elements be mutually reinforcing.
Recommendations
- Execute a deliberative, careful process to develop the Office of Disaster Research and Innovation (ODRI).
- Ensure that mission and budget—the most-important components of the federal research offices in the sample—are mutually reinforcing.
- Ensure that the ODRI’s organizational structure, staffing, and research functions, such as standards and impact assessment, are aligned with the office’s mission and budget.
- Develop an ideal ODRI vision that includes all these components.
- Outline how ODRI development will progress over time to achieve its vision, the outcomes that will need to be in place for its vision to be realized, and who is responsible for championing and achieving interim outcomes.
- Use the sample vision for a fully developed ODRI, a phased approach to realizing such a vision, and outcomes that would need to be achieved for the ODRI to advance from phase to phase.
- Manage both NDEMU and ODRI staff toward outcome achievement, assess the extent to which advancement toward outcomes is being made over time, and evaluate whether they will be achieved within intended time frames.
- As needed, return to consideration of the basic components needed for the ODRI—mission and budget. Narrow mission scope to fit budget realities over time and align other basic office components, such as organizational structure, staffing, and synthesis.
Topics
Document Details
- Availability: Available
- Year: 2025
- Print Format: Paperback
- Paperback Pages: 92
- Paperback Price: $29.00
- Paperback ISBN/EAN: 1-9774-1417-6
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA3025-5
- Document Number: RR-A3025-5
Citation
RAND Style Manual
Jensen, Jessica, Leah Dion, Katie Wilson, Eileen Young, and Rachel Steratore, Developing an Office of Disaster Research and Innovation: A Process, Questions, and Options for the National Disaster and Emergency Management University, Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center operated by the RAND Corporation, RR-A3025-5, 2025. As of April 30, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3025-5.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Jensen, Jessica, Leah Dion, Katie Wilson, Eileen Young, and Rachel Steratore, Developing an Office of Disaster Research and Innovation: A Process, Questions, and Options for the National Disaster and Emergency Management University. Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center operated by the RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3025-5.html. Also available in print form.
Research conducted by
This research was sponsored by EMI and conducted in the Disaster Management and Resilience Program of the RAND Homeland Security Research Division.
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