Research
Research at the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance offers
- scientifically-sound problem solutions for civil protection, as well as
- new concepts, procedures and technology,
and hence makes a major contribution towards upgrading civil protection mechanisms.
The projects must be important and necessary for the daily work of civil protection in order to receive promotion. The research topics largely come from
- natural sciences,
- medicine, and
- the psycho-social field.
They emerge from the Office’s daily civil protection work and are input by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The proposals for specific projects come from the above authorities, as well as from
- the fire services,
- relief organisations,
- industry,
- rescue services,
- Universities
and from other authorities and institutions. They however also emerge from fundamental papers listed in greater detail under research projects.
A framework research plan was drawn up together with the Protection Commission at the Federal Ministry of the Interior in which the topical areas are established, and this serves as a basis for determining which projects are important.
Research benefiting civil protection is entrenched in section 4 subsection 1 No. 5 of the Civil Defence Act as a task for the Federation:
“The following shall be in particular incumbent on the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance...
5...the tasks for technical and scientific research in agreement with the Länder, the evaluation of research results, as well as collection and evaluation of publications in the field of civil defence.”
The research results are as a rule published in the series of books entitled “Zivilschutz-Forschung, Neue Folge”, and in some cases also only on the Internet pages of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance. The publications are only available in German. They can be ordered in book form within the German portion of our Internet presentation, or are available for download.