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The purpose of this paper is to understand the key challenges, approaches and lessons of the higher educational institutions (HEIs) in the context of COVID-19.

A survey was conducted to understand the key challenges being faced by the HEIs around the world during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 150 responses were collected from 65 universities, located in 29 countries.

The results show that 47% of respondents with defined universities believe their institutions lacked a permanent or dedicated emergency management office, and 41% said their HEIs lacked a general business continuity plan for an emergency. In universities with BCPs, 33% of the plans do not cover biological hazards and pandemic risk management, and 60% of the plans did not include conducting any advanced simulation exercises. More than 70% the responded said their instruction, information sharing and decision-making process were timely and open. The major challenges identified were a lack of adequate preparedness for pandemic and of pandemic-specific advanced simulation exercises. The next major challenges were the change in the mode of teaching to online lectures and working from home. Based on these challenges, a set of short- and long-term recommendations were proposed.

This was the first survey in academic institutions in post COVID-19 context. The findings will be useful for preparing for biological and other related hazards.

Risk reduction in cities of fast developing nations is both an opportunity and a big challenge. It is an opportunity because cities are considered efficient spatial forms of human habitation where smart interventions can be optimized. However, involvement and ownership of urban society is a big challenge. This paper illustrates these challenges and opportunities with an example of India's largest city – Mumbai. It discusses Mumbai's key drivers of risk, contributing factors to vulnerabilities and places it in the context of the 2005 flood – a disaster of a scale never experienced before. Citizen–government partnerships emanating from community-based small-scale initiatives for improving neighborhood's environment are analyzed. The paper concludes that there are enormous benefits in scaling up the participatory approaches, which result in reducing vulnerabilities and enhancing resilience of cities. Urban risk reduction will remain a daunting task if not built around these existing strengths of cities and their citizens.

Climate change is happening now. Climate-induced disasters are occurring in the Asia Pacific region, where a distinctly increasing trend has been observed in recent decades. This shows that the region is the most disaster prone, compared with other parts of the world. Studies on the causes of disaster in many affected regions suggest that in a typical disaster, cities with high population density see increases in mortality and number of people affected. Increased economic losses within the region are also inevitable. In most Asian countries, 65–90% of economic activities are concentrated in urban areas. Estimates indicate that two out of three people on the earth will live in urban areas by the year 2030. Unless appropriate measures are taken in these urban communities, disaster incidents will continue to increase. Urban communities are a main player to confront this increasing trend of climate-induced disasters.

Persuading “urban communities” and “sustaining” environmental risk reduction measures among them, always remains a challenge. Disasters are generally perceived as one‐time, long return period, high impact events. Even in the disaster struck areas, as the time passes, people tend to overlook the miseries of the past and continue to create risk. This paper seeks to examine how neighborhood environmental issues bring communities together and also sustainably reduce risk in Mumbai.

This diagnostic study is based on thorough literature survey backed with field visit to capture viewpoints of communities, local officials, civic society, etc. The urbanization pattern of Mumbai is elaborated with specific focus on city governance and recognizing environmental and disaster vulnerabilities. Recent flood in Mumbai is deconstructed to delve of specific role of communities and other stakeholders. Existing participatory mechanism known as ALM is construed to reflect on its role in risk reduction followed by suggestive course of action.

ALM as “municipal agency‐neighborhood group partnership” has helped people learn caring the areas beyond own housing premises and work together for locality problems. City government boosted this community‐led effort, as it was not only reducing burden on overstressed municipal services and reducing flood risk but also helping to let down epidemics and water‐borne diseases.

This study is based on field study from only one city of India. Inputs from other cities from the developing world may further enrich the research.

It is observed that with due encouragement and support from local government, the voluntary community action towards neighborhood level issues can be well mobilized and sustained for long‐term.

People‐centered approaches transcend across developmental disciplines and significantly contribute towards reduction of environmental and hazard risk.

The chapter tries to trace the development of concept of urban ecosystem as a problem-solving approach for urban problems, including the unwarranted problems caused by climate change. Urban management has increasingly shifted from infrastructure-based to a more regional-based approach. There has been a shift in the domain of urban ecosystem as well, from the established urbanized area to the aggregation of urban and surrounding rural area. Also, urban-rural linkages are given more attention in resource management in urban areas, thereby reducing the overall risk due to climate change. The chapter provides examples and challenges of urban ecosystem management from across the world.

Urban resilience is a fairly new but rapidly emerging area of interest. Academia as well as the professional and practitioner communities are increasingly engaged in understanding the characteristics of resilience in complex urban issues. The year 2007–2008 was a historical milestone in human history for two reasons. First, the percentage of urban population to total population in the world touched 50 percent; second, the works of climate scientists were recognized as being so significant that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007. Both events are closely associated with and provide special impetus to further research into and understanding of urban resilience, which this chapter discusses further in the following sections.

Provide insights on the feasibility of connecting classrooms at a number of universities in the Asia Pacific region in a sustainable and low cost manner through the use of video conferencing.

Collaborative project implemented by a network of universities in the region.

A new form of innovative educational program is feasible based on the effective use of technology which is now readily available as a result of university investment programs, but under utilized due to lack of familiarity or negative perceptions amongst faculty of how to effectively employ this technology in their teaching.

A viable model of university collaboration has been identified and there are no insurmountable barriers preventing other educational programs with the same design. A key limitation relates to whether or not other educational institutions would see the benefits of this model in a highly competitive education marketplace.

Collaborative approaches to teaching in an inter-university context could prove very effective especially when dealing with complex topics like climate change, energy, and food security where the sharing of knowledge is crucial. Social implications: A connected classroom in the inter-university context opens up students and faculty to a diversity of perspectives that may be more appropriate than the traditional way of teaching, especially in this rapidly globalizing world.

All too often educational projects are implemented as pilots and they are not sustained over prolonged periods of time. This project has been on-going for over a decade.