Experimenting towards civil society resilience

Civil Society Resilience is an area of crisis management that is complementary to professional response. Crisis managers and response organizations need to integrate individuals, communities and local governments in their management efforts, among others by efficient crisis communication via media and the mobilization and handling of citizens as spontaneous volunteers. DRIVER aims at a campaign of experiments: organizational concepts and IT-solutions will be iteratively tested and assessed under realistic conditions to understand and improve their operational benefits. Therefore, this paper outlines the DRIVER approach of addressing the civil society in the context of resilience towards crisis situations. This does not only include a society oriented definition of local resilience as well as an introduction into the DRIVER perspectives of the society to be included in the DRIVER framework, rather it will be explained how DRIVERs consecutive experimentation approach supports the sustainable development of local societal resilience.