Working together to benefit the Public Safety Community

21st Dec 2022

The Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety (CDMPS), established in 2014 at the University of Melbourne, and British APCO have announced their recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding.  Both organisations have public safety at their heart – and together there is opportunity to work closer together for mutual benefit.

CDMPS strives to promote disaster management research at the University of Melbourne. It fosters interdisciplinary research collaborations, provides training and skills development for our community of researchers, and promotes knowledge exchange and impact with regional, national, and international stakeholders.  British APCO is a community with extensive knowledge in Public Safety IT and Communication technology because of their members' use and delivery of real-life public safety solutions.  There are many areas of interest that overlap between CDMPS and British APCO which make this opportunity for collaboration exciting.  Within Australia CDMPS continues to seek recognition in government policy of mission critical communications as an integrated ecosystem within Australia’s “critical infrastructure” sector.

But it’s not just the areas of overlap; its where British APCO can bring data and empirical experience to help underpin CDMPS research – or where CDMPS can knowledge and share their findings to help British APCO members to gain insight into a different dimension to understand how to tackle problems they may never have faced before.  CDMPS and British APCO are also collaborating closely through a global initiative set up back in 2019 – CC:IPS, The Collaborative Coalition for International Public Safety, which aims to promote, support and improve emergency communications services utilising the most current and commonly accepted technologies, standards, and best practices.  Meeting regularly with partners from North America, Europe and Australasia, CC:IPS can draw on a wealth of global experience – and look to build strength through common use of standards that promote interoperability and enhance public safety.

The President of British APCO, John Anthony, is delighted that the association are a signatory to this MoU. For many years we have had a close relationship with colleagues from the CDMPS, meeting at various international conferences and maintaining a close contact beyond that and more recently through the establishment of CC:IPS. To put this relationship onto a formal footing will enable both organisations to share information more readily regarding developments in public safety technology, all to improve the safety and effectiveness of our first responders leading to better outcomes for our citizens.

Professor Alex Babanin, CDMPS Director, added that “The University of Melbourne’s Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety welcomes the opportunity to announce the execution of a Memorandum of Understanding with British APCO.  Through the MOU both organisations will be able to freely share information relating to the on-going development of the global mission critical communications ecosystem and the ever-increasing importance of the role the ecosystem performs in times of natural disaster, pandemic, public safety, and global security at all levels of society.  Importantly the CDMPS – British APCO MOU also represents the formalisation by both parties of their commitment to support the health and safety of First Responders through the growth of their international networks.