Our Alliance Manchester Business School has secured funding to support research into the long-term recovery of local communities from the damage caused by the pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges to communities across the world. How organisations now work together to drive long-term recovery in what is a very complex political landscape, is the focus of a project being headed up by Duncan Shaw, Professor of Operations and Critical Systems, at Alliance Manchester Business School.

Part-funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) it brings together specialists from Alliance MBS, the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI), and the University to develop guidance and create a framework that can be used to build resilience in local communities post Covid-19.

A team of academics will analyse how stakeholders such as local government, the emergency services and volunteer groups have responded to Covid-19 in the UK and overseas, before identifying the changes that need to be made to better support short-term recovery and drive long-term renewal within local communities.

Using this information, academics will then partner with Local Resilience Forums – groups of representatives from local authorities and the wider public sector – in Merseyside, the Thames Valley and Essex to develop and test a resilience framework.

Professor Shaw said: “The framework will specifically be designed to enable local communities to better plan, prepare and respond to emergencies like the pandemic.”

The funding announcement follows a 12-month project during which Professor Shaw and colleagues have been working with organisations worldwide to ensure local communities can recover from Covid-19. This includes specialists in the areas of critical systems, emergency response, community resilience, humanitarian aid and mobilisation, digital solutions and security, viable systems, healthcare delivery and operations management.

Over the past year they have also been producing The Manchester Briefing which contains international lessons on response and recovery.