This module aims to equip students with the tools required to plan, implement, present and evaluate primary research relating to risk and disaster reduction. As a student on this module you will learn about the research project chain including the process for proposing research ideas, acquiring funding and approval for such work, logistical planning of fieldwork for both research and emergency response, designing your data collection strategy, practical techniques for fieldwork, presenting your own findings and placing them in context by being able to critique the work of others. Through lectures, tutorials and exercises featuring examples relating to disaster risk reduction, and practical fieldwork experience students will learn the following. How to evaluate research from presentations and papers. How to write effective research, consultancy and funding proposals: (a) how to formulate the research question; (b) how to structure a literature review in a proposal; (c) how to assess resource needs; (d) apportioning time and resources in a project; (e) what makes proposals attractive - and pitfalls to avoid; Research Presentation: audience-appropriate research communication through talks, papers, reports and posters Effective data collection: (a) how quantitative and qualitative data research differ; (b) how to conduct interviews; (c) how to write surveys, (d) how to plan questionnaires. Fieldwork requirements: (a) risk assessment; (b) fieldwork ethics; (c) responsive fieldwork planning. Participation in a simulated real-time event scenario run by the NGO Rescue Global, or substitute exercise: (a) real-time experience of logistical decision making in response to a disaster, led by current practitioners, (b) what kind of decisions need to be made, how the decision process works, constraints imposed by lack of detailed information and the need for urgency, the need to balance planning and adaptability in response to the developing situation, and the importance of team work in a high-pressure environment. Conducting fieldwork; (a) participation in a residential field trip to Southwest England, or 'virtual' equivalent; (b) hands-on experience in collecting and recording quantitative and qualitative data in the field (if circumstances permit); (c) an appreciation of different perspectives from professionals in both the private and public sector assessing risks posed to the UK; (d) practice delivering evidence-based arguments within a structured debate about risk using various types of data.