Immediately following a disaster and conflict-induced displacement a community will undergo resettlement as a process of recovery comprising efforts to restore the displaced community’s equilibrium level from different perspectives. Resettlement is also a process that introduces new built environment (BE) for the displaced. This new BE potentially redefines the social system as one interlinked with other subsystems of the community. However, following a fundamental change in the system, restoring the earlier equilibrium is almost impossible. When BE is concerned, the most overlooked aspect of understanding and determining the success of the resettlement is the role of the host community. A sudden change in the pattern of interaction with the BE would have an immediate effect on the stability of the host community. Consequently, both the communities will suffer stress in adapting to the new BE. The BE perspective of post-disaster and conflict-induced displacement has less academic engagement and is seldom addressed in policies. Accordingly, the aim of the project is to develop competencies in rebuilding communities following disaster and conflict induced mass displacements from the perspective of the BE and the following objectives have been set out. • To identify the needs of the communities following disaster and conflict induced mass displacements in the perspective of BE • To investigate the role of the BE in enhancing social cohesion between host and displaced communities • To explore the knowledge, skills and competencies required by the BE professionals to address the needs of the host and displaced communities • To develop, test and implement an innovative series of training courses in catering the needs of the host and displaced communities • To develop associated curricula and resources for teachers and learners • To introduce new uses of ICT in education by formulating technology-enhanced learning environments and materials to facilitate teaching and learning • To propose policy recommendations to BE professional bodies in upgrading the professional competencies to address the needs of the host and displaced communities In terms of outputs, the project team will carry out a community needs analysis to identify the needs of the host and displaced communities which will inform policy in rebuilding communities. The community need analysis will also inform the competency framework, in identifying the competencies required by BE professionals to better engage in rebuilding efforts. The project will further develop a synthesis report on the role of the BE in enhancing social cohesion and a guidance note with recommendations on best practices. The outputs discussed above will not only benefit theory but due to the importance of the subject matter within Europe and beyond, it will provide an important contribution to the practice. These outputs will inform policy and will be helpful for national and local governments, international organisations, non-profit organisations and BE professional bodies to understand the issues related to rebuilding communities following disaster and conflict induced mass displacements from the perspective of the BE. Two stakeholder seminars and a research symposium will be organised to disseminate the findings of the above outputs and to share knowledge with target audience. The project will develop an innovative series of training courses for BE professionals in catering the needs of the host and displaced communities with associated curricular, and training materials. These will be developed as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) tailored for rapid skill acquisition for BE professionals involved in resettlements and available through project's virtual training environment. The MOOCs will provide an effective means of building capacity among a much wider pool of professionals in the Europe and beyond. There will be two face-to-face intensive programmes for teaching staff and HEI learners who are in BE related disciplines. Accordingly, the participants and participating organisations will be able to develop their competencies in rebuilding communities and newly acquired skills may result in providing improved resettlement for displaced communities while satisfying the needs of both host and displaced communities. Based on a professional competence audit, a policy report for built environment professional bodies will be developed in upgrading the professional competencies to address the needs of the host and displaced communities. The project will organise number of meetings/ seminars with built environment professional bodies which will help in disseminating the policy report to the target audience. Accordingly, the project will facilitate upgrading professional competencies of targeted professional bodies.
Following a disaster and conflict-induced displacement, a community will undergo resettlement as a process of recovery comprising efforts to restore the displaced community’s equilibrium level. A sudden change in the pattern of interaction with the built environment (BE) would have an immediate effect on the stability of the host community. Consequently, both the communities will suffer stress in adapting to the new BE. In such a context, the BE can play a vital role in addressing the needs of both communities and enhancing the social cohesion between the displaced and host communities. In order to play this vital role, such BE needs to be planned, designed, constructed, and maintained by competent BE professionals. However, this BE perspective of post-disaster and conflict-induced displacement has less academic engagement and is seldom addressed in policies. Addressing this need, the REGARD Project aimed to develop competencies in rebuilding communities following a disaster and conflict-induced mass displacements from the perspective of the BE. In achieving this aim the following objectives had been set out. • To identify the needs of the displaced and host communities • To investigate the role of the BE in enhancing social cohesion between host and displaced communities • To explore the knowledge, skills and competencies required by the BE professionals to address the needs of the host and displaced communities • To develop, test and implement an innovative series of training courses in catering for the needs of the communities • To develop associated curricula and resources for teachers and learners • To introduce new uses of ICT in education by formulating technology-enhanced learning environments and materials to facilitate teaching and learning • To propose policy recommendations to BE professional bodies in upgrading the professional competencies to address the needs of the host and displaced communities In achieving these objectives, the REGARD project started the research process by identifying the needs of the host and displaced communities (output 1). Then the project investigated the role of the BE in addressing these identified needs of the displaced and host communities and produced a synthesis report as the second output. Afterwards, the project identified the best practices of rebuilding host and displaced communities and developed a guidance note with recommendations and best practices of rebuilding communities as the third output. Then the project investigated the competencies required by the BE professionals in order to play this vital role of BE in rebuilding communities and enhancing social cohesion between these communities. This competency framework was the fourth output of the project. The outputs discussed above benefit not only for theory but also to the practice. Afterwards, as the fifth output, the project partners developed an online training course: MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) on the knowledge hub platform to develop the competencies of the BE professionals as well as for the professionals who are working in the displacement context. Course handbook and the training materials are developed for this virtual training environment as the sixth output. Through this resourceful virtual learning environment, the project tries to address the knowledge gaps of the professionals and help to improve their competencies. Then the project conducted a competency audit identifying the gaps between the existing competencies identified by the BE professional bodies in the UK, Sweden, Estonia and Srilanka and compared with the identified competencies. Based on this competency audit, the project also informed policy recommendations to BE professional bodies in upgrading the professional competencies to address the needs of the host and displaced communities. This eighth output informs the policy and is helpful for national and local governments, international organisations, non-profit organisations and BE professional bodies to understand the issues related to rebuilding displaced communities. Disseminating these project findings number of conference and journal papers were published (Output 9) and a journal special issue on ‘rebuilding communities after forced displacement is published (Output 10). Apart from that, two stakeholder seminars and a research symposium were conducted to disseminate the findings of the above outputs. The project findings were also presented and project posters were displayed at a number of international conferences held face to face as well as online. In this way, the project team made an impact on the target audience. Apart from that, the REGARD project website with the project results can be accessed by the project stakeholders and general public all around the world. Therefore, with its 8372 unique visitors and 254837 website hits, it can be said the project has a huge impact on the international level.