Prof. Duncan Shaw is Professor of Critical Systems: Disaster Risk, Resilience and Society.

His work portfolio includes:

• co-founded the National Consortium for Societal Resilience [UK+] which involves all UK local resilience forums (www.ambs.ac.uk/ncsr).
• founded the International Consortium for Societal Resilience which involves 17 countries (www.ambs.ac.uk/i-ncsr).
• chairs the Cabinet Office's National Security Risk Assessment (Human Welfare) Panel.
• chairs an International Standards Organisation working group on societal resilience and has written 7 ISOs.
• led the ESRC project Recovery, Renewal, Resilience during COVID-19, wrote ISO22393, and produced The Manchester Briefing (www.ambs.ac.uk/covidrecovery).

He has a First Class Honours and a Ph.D. in Management Science (from Strathclyde University), a Higher Doctorate (D.Sc) (Warwick University). He is a Fellow of the Operational Research Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was Professor at Warwick Business School (2012-2014) and Aston Business School (2008-2011). Before academia, Duncan worked in the nuclear industry and for an electronics company.

External funding

Duncan has research funding exceeding £20m. Projects include:

• AHRC: Building a Secure and Resilient World: Research and Coordination Hubs. £4.25m. 2024-2028. (https://www.salient-hub.org)
• EPSRC and MOD: Resilience Beyond Observed Capabilities. £2.25m. Enhancing societal resilience to prepare for a major crisis in 2051. 2022-25. (https://rboc.ac.uk)
• ESRC and partners: Recovering from COVID-19: Informing, supporting and developing guidance for local resilience. £1,012,728. Worked with emergency planners to develop a framework for planning recovery and renewal. 2020-2022. (www.ambs.ac.uk/covidrecovery).
• ESRC: Managing spontaneous volunteers in disasters. £51,750. Implemented a plan for spontaneous volunteering in Chile, Argentina and Serbia. 2018-19.
• EPSRC: Techno-Economic framework for Resilient and Sustainable Electrification. 2018-2021. £1,193,416.
• European Commission: City to city local peer review for Disaster Risk Reduction. 2017-2019 €1,115,398. Developed and tested a method for peer review.
• Department of Health £1,750,000: DoH: National evaluation of the New Care Models programme. 
• EPSRC: Disaster management and resilience in electric power systems. 2017-2019. £500,338. This project develops simulation models to improve the resilience of power systems to earthquake in Chile as well as develops community resilience to poower outages.
• DEFRA: Researching the potential involvement of citizens in emergency response to flooding. £80,000. This project sought to understand the role of volunteers.
• European Commission: Wrote a 6 country exchange of experts on civil protection.
• ESRC: Supporting the development of integrated service delivery to allow the public smoother access to policing in this £220,000 project with a local police force.
• ESRC: Engaging Research for Business Transformation (Erebus). Principal Investigator. £2.4m.
• European Commission: Principal Investigator for the €1m (Fec), Disaster 2.0: Using Web 2.0 applications and Semantic Technologies to strengthen resilience to disasters.
• European Commission: Principal Investigator for the €660,000 (Fec), 3-year project called Evacuation Responsiveness by Government Organisations (ERGO).
• Nuclear Installations Inspectorate: Two main projects – one on Waste and Source-matter Analysis which developed IAEA guidance for the safe reduction of nuclear waste. The other project on performance assessment.
• Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Analysing New Dimension disaster resources. These models were transferred to Australia's emergency services.
• Nuclear Installation Inspectorate: Nuclear industry projects on: waste management; engaging stakeholders; peer reviewing.
• Health and Safety Executive: Multi-criteria decision making methodology for waste minimisation.

External duties

• Research councils for ESRC, EPSRC, European Commission.
• UK government research for HSE, Cabinet Office, DCLG, DoH, Home Office, Scottish Executive, and every local government through the National Consortium for Societal Resilience.
• International research for 
  • Governments (or companies) in Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand.
  • United Nations, UNDRR, UNISDR, International Organization for Migration, UNECE.
• Keynotes at practitioner events, such as to NATO, GmF, GESA, Kerhaus, Office of Nuclear Regulation, the IAEA, High Commission for Civil Protection (France), Ministry of Security and Justice (Netherlands), Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (Germany).
• UN at the ISO General Assembly moderator.

Awards

• Academy of Management Perspectives Best Paper 2025: Finalist.
• ESRC Impact Award 2023: Runner Up.
• Emergency Planning Society Team of the Year 2021.
• British Standards Institute Standards Maker of the Year 2020.
• Prestigious Newton Prize 2018 for EPSRC project "Disaster management and resilience in electric power systems".

Standards Work

International Standards Organization

• Chair of Working Group 5 on Community Resilience in Technical Committee 292 (Societal Security).
• Wrote 6 disaster-related international standards on:
  • recovery (ISO22393)
  • mass evacuation (ISO22315)
  • spontaneous volunteers (ISO22319)
  • vulnerable persons (ISO22395)
  • peer reviews (ISO22392)
  • societal resilience (ISO22354).

Impact

Many impact case studies, such as:

• Societal resilience - through the National Consortium for Societal Resilience (www.ambs.ac.uk/ncsrmap)
• Spontaneous volunteers which led to the UK Government establishing a new national committee led by DCLG and the Cabinet Office. We wrote new non-statutory guidance and 15 Local Authorities pioneered its implementation, conducted major exercises (with +500 staff), led to 5 nations changing their guidance (e.g. Chile, Argentina, and Serbia). Began a new narrative in the UK. 
• International Organization of Migrations worked to produce the MEND guide with widespread impact across developing countries (http://www.globalcccmcluster.org/system/files/publications/MEND_download.pdf)
• Peer review methodology for disaster risk reduction. Applied in a range of countries, participularly in the Europe (Italy, Portugal), Middle East, and UK Cabinet Office.

Group facilitation

Duncan also has a strong interest in strategy development and has been a group facilitator in over 100 strategic planning workshops working with top management teams e.g. AstraZeneca, Fire Service College, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory [dstl].

COVID-19 related activities

Duncan led a cross-university team to produce The Manchester Briefing which is a weekly document of lessons from across the world for government officials on responding and recovering to the virus. This document shares the team's thinking on Recovery and Renewal from the effects of COVID-19, is circulated to 85,000 people globally, and is freely available from www.ambs.ac.uk/covidrecovery

He supports practitioners in thinking about recovery strategies. Examples include:  

• Global Resilient Cities Network (GRCN) - which is a Rockefeller/World Bank initiative
• Local government - Strategic, Tactical and Recovery coordination groups across three Local Resilience Forums as well as Humanitarian Aid cells that support vulnerable people and the voluntary sector
• Training and workshops - runs webinars and workshops on Recovery and Renewal, contributing to the UK Cabinet Office's COVID-19 training for all UK Local Authorities 
• National committees - e.g. Voluntary and Communities Sector Emergencies Partnership; Cabinet Office Recovery Network; C-19 National Strategic Group; C-19 Working Foresight Group