Center Mission Statement

Center Mission Statement

Our nation's ability to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from high consequence emergency incidents, especially those involving weapons of mass effect, is vital to the security of all citizens. The New England Academic Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response is a regionally based, national resource advancing theory, technology and human learning for homeland defense through innovative education - with a specific emphasis on the development of the thinking, reasoning, and decision-making skills individuals require to respond skillfully and proficiently. research, development, testing, and deployment of preventive, response, and recovery systems.

The Center will achieve its mission by:

Collaborating with DHS and emergency personnel to prioritize catastrophic contingencies that may occur in different jurisdictions and to identify requirements (e.g., methodologies, technologies, education programs) for responding to those events. Faculty and staff members of our participating institutions will continue to be active in the development and revision of national consensus standards relating to specifications and deployment of relevant technologies;

Identifying and developing, directly with emergency responders, the knowledge and cognitive skills (thinking, reasoning, and decision-making) that all tiers of government need to effectively prepare for, respond to, and recover from catastrophic events;

Developing rapid, efficient, and cost effective human-technology networks for improving command, communications, and control among a large array of emergency responders and response agencies;

In cooperation with fire-rescue, police, EMS, hospital, public health, and emergency management entities, constructing and supporting synthetic and physical test beds throughout the region, where human-technology networks can be evaluated for interoperable functioning and performance;

Engaging the general public in key aspects of reducing the consequences of potentially catastrophic events (Awareness, Anticipation, Prevention, Detection, Response, Recovery);

Involving graduate, postdoctoral, and professional scholars in an inquiry-based program of research, development, publication and learning by sharing the multi-disciplinary faculty and specialized resources of the participating institutions as well as the extensive emergency response relationships they have established.