New Master’s degree pro­gram Safe­ty and Dis­as­ter Manage­ment at MUL

The new Master’s degree pro­gram Safe­ty and Dis­as­ter Manage­ment starts this Autumn at Mon­tan­uni­ver­si­ty Leo­ben and places spe­cial empha­sis on the deve­lo­p­ment of inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry com­pe­tence. The pre­re­qui­si­te of which is a sound mul­ti­di­sci­pli­na­ry edu­ca­ti­on in the anti­ci­pa­ti­on of risks and the manage­ment of dis­as­ters. Tea­ching is rese­arch-led, ori­en­ted towards cur­rent social chal­lenges and encou­ra­ges cri­ti­cal reflec­tion. Chal­len­ging times need out­stan­ding per­so­na­li­ties!

To deve­lop ade­qua­te respon­ses, we need to com­bi­ne the con­tri­bu­ti­ons of dif­fe­rent disci­pli­nes in risk and dis­as­ter manage­ment. Incre­asing­ly, we are con­fron­ted with sys­te­mic risks that are very dif­fi­cult to mana­ge due to their high com­ple­xi­ty and cas­ca­ding effects, among other fac­tors. New tech­no­lo­gies can make important con­tri­bu­ti­ons to mana­ging cur­rent cri­ses, such as the cli­ma­te cri­sis, and at the same time they car­ry as yet unknown new risks and impacts. So we need to learn to deal with uncer­tain­ties respon­si­bly and to design pro­ces­ses in such a way that a socie­tal assess­ment of risk is pos­si­ble. The­se very deman­ding manage­ment tasks requi­re a lot of tech­ni­cal and social com­pe­tence as well as the wil­ling­ness for inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry coope­ra­ti­on.

We teach from the disci­pli­nes HUMAN, ECO­NO­MY, ENGI­NEE­RING, NATU­RE and link in tar­ge­ted inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry semi­nars and trai­nings at the inter­faces. Our stu­dents are con­fron­ted with the pos­si­bi­li­ties and chal­lenges of inte­gra­ting dif­fe­rent forms of know­ledge and prac­ti­ce inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on. Stu­dents with inte­rest in this Master’s pro­gram are invi­ted to inscri­be this Autumn!