The Natural Disasters Observatory of the Aon Foundation and Tecnun, the Engineering School of the University of Navarra, have announced the first edition of the award José María Sarriegi, in memory of the Deputy Director Researcher of Tecnun who passed away last December. The prize will be awarded to the best article of academic research on topics related to natural disaster management and which has been published in the last two years in specialized research journals.  

Pedro Tomey, director General of the Aon Foundation Spain, explains that "the award, endowed with 1,000 euros, aims to honor the report of this academic and researcher, who worked so actively with us for the creation and launch of the first Natural Disaster Observatory in Europe".  

As stated in the instructions of the call, on the website of the Aon Foundation Spain, thepapers must be written in Spanish or English and address the threat of Climate Change on one of the following topics: Resilience, Climate Governance, Critical Infrastructures, Urban Areas and Climate Change, Risk Management, Predictive Tools and Awareness. In addition, each candidate may submit a maximum of two articles as first author.

It should be noted that the Aon Foundation has chosen campus in San Sebastian at the University of Navarra as one of the sites for its Chair on Catastrophes. The initiative, a pioneer in Europe, aims to structure and systematically develop research and study of catastrophes through goal . The research and teaching activities of the Chair of Catastrophes will be carried out at Tecnun, the School of Engineering of the University of Navarra, and at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas ICAI-ICADE, through the Institute of Migration Studies (IUEM).

The Chair includes two projects at the School of Engineering. On the one hand, research will be carried out on improving the resilience of urban critical infrastructures in the face of climate change. On the other hand, predictive tools for catastrophes will be studied, which can anticipate and assess natural disasters and the risks associated with them.