ResilienceDirect during Covid-19: understanding and enhancing digital collaboration

The Covid-19 pandemic has been labelled as the largest peacetime emergency that Britain has faced in the last 100 years. The complexity and scope of the Covid-19 pandemic has required close collaboration between a diverse array of organisations from the emergency services, multiple levels of government, private and charitable organisations, and an assortment of experts and specialist bodies. ResilienceDirect has been a crucial technology enabling and enhancing communication, coordination and collaboration across the highly diverse bodies which have been required to work together to respond to the challenges of the Covid-19 outbreak within the UK.

This report communicates the findings of a research project that analysed and evaluated how the ResilienceDirect platform was used within the UK’s Covid-19 response. It was found that ResilienceDirect was applied in many innovative ways to support the response and over 92% of users recognised it as vital to enabling collaboration during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research highlights areas where the potential of ResilienceDirect to develop collaboration could be enhanced. Importantly, while the file storage function of ResilienceDirect is well used and understood, some of the more advanced and emergency specific functions are not yet fully utilised and require further support and development. There is also significant potential for further development of ResilienceDirect to support organisational learning and knowledge, particularly by further developing and integrating the Joint Organisational Learning function. Above all, ResilienceDirect needs to continue to be supported by central government who recognize its immense value and potential to the emergency community. This report highlights both the current value of ResilienceDirect to support collaboration and how the technology and its use could be improved in the future. The report is also concerned with developing broader insights into the potential of digital technologies to facilitate emergency collaboration. Covid-19 has demonstrated that technologies such as ResilienceDirect can become a critical piece of national infrastructure underpinning emergency planning, response, and recovery activity. However, ResilienceDirect will need to continue to adapt to fulfil this function in the years ahead. The report concludes with ten recommendations to support the role of ResilienceDirect in underpinning and enhancing UK resilience into the future.