The Exchange of Experts in Civil Protection Programme aims at connecting experts across borders to broaden their operational knowledge and skills through practical experience and knowledge sharing. The exchanges offer insight into the work of different civil protection entities across Europe and beyond.
On 2 and 3 April 2024, the Netherlands Institute of Public Safety (NIVP) hosted an exchange of civil protection experts with ten representatives from the Lviv State University of Life Safety (LSUofLS) and the National University of Civil Protection of Ukraine (NUCPU) on the topic of education systems in firefighting, modern societal risks and the implications on firefighting procedures, for example, fire hazards of lithium-ion batteries, safety management and wooden buildings fire safety. The exchange also allowed experts to explore other common fields of interest and create a basis for further collaboration.
On the first day of the exchange, the representatives of the LSUofLS and NUCPU presented their respective institutions and programmes for fire and rescue service personnel, as well as on more specific research subjects.
The NIPV and their invited experts complemented these presentations, providing an introduction on the organisation of the fire service within 25 safety regions and how they collaborate. The organisational structure of NIPV was also presented, with a focus on the independent Dutch Academy of Crisis management and Fire safety. The role of NIPV is to support the policy-making Ministry by developing the normative base. The Ministry of Justice and Safety is responsible for putting norms into laws. In Ukraine these roles are similar.
NUCPU explained how the university trains future firefighters, the organisation of the institution, faculties and specialties of the National University. NUCPU also offers a course on (extreme) psychology and one on practical training in which students are taught to rescue victims, learn sign language and the training of drone operations. Following the Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, rescue training in extreme conditions is proposed. The university has many international collaborations with other universities across Europe, for example Poland and Bulgaria.
One of the research topics, modelling logistics and crowd management, was presented and discussed. Using logistical models, it is possible to calculate the evacuation time needed for large buildings or different infrastructure objects, such as stadiums and airports.
A working meeting was held between the General Director of the Institute of Public Safety and the coordinator of the event -professor of the fire service of the Netherlands Academy of Fire Services, during which the prospect for closer cooperation between the institutions was discussed. The fruitful result of the discussion was the signature of the Memorandum of Understanding, paving the way for future cooperation between the two institutions.
During the next day of the exchange, Dutch experts continued to present on different subjects: on lithium-ion battery fires prevention and suppression, the need for performance-based design in the Netherlands, fire protection of wood using metal-coordinated epoxy-amine compositions and research of the fire hazard of a lithium-ion power cell.
In the afternoon part the host institute NIPV invited the experts to see in practice how training is organised and the best practice of modern fire-fighting procedures inside the airport infrastructure at the Training Centre FRS (Bocas) Amsterdam, Schiphol airport. During the visit there was a possibility to discuss the learning process and training course details with the instructors of the training centre, as well as giving the possibility for the experts to observe a training exercise of airplane fire extinguishing.
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