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 José María Sarriegi Award, in memory of the Deputy Director of Research at Tecnun who passed away last December. The prize will be awarded to the best academic research article on topics related to the management of natural disasters and which has been published in the last two years in specialised research journals.  

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

As stated in the terms and conditions 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 Raising. In addition, each candidate may submit a maximum of two articles as first author.

It should be noted that the Aon Foundation has chosen the San Sebastian campus of the University of Navarra as one of the sites for its Chair in Disasters. The initiative, a pioneer in Europe, aims to systematically structure and develop the research and study of disasters. The research and teaching activities of the Chair in Disasters 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 for 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 critical urban 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.