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The PLACARD Connectivity Hub: A ‘search and discovery’ tool for CCA and DRR

The PLACARD Connectivity Hub is a dynamic and interactive online tool for exploring the topic-specific knowledge networks on CCA and DRR, including articles, authors, topics and organisations.
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Introducing the Connectivity Hub

The Connectivity Hub is designed to help planners, decision-makers, researchers, policymakers, students, and interested citizens who are trying to find information, organisations and people relevant to their work in CCA and DRR.

What is the Hub’s purpose?

As its name implies, the Connectivity Hub is designed to link people with the knowledge they need. The aim is to avoid redundancy and replication. No one wants to reinvent the wheel, or to waste resources, as can happen when people are not aware of parallel or complementary work going on elsewhere. The Hub helps you find information that you may not know exists, and to find it quickly and easily.

How is the Hub different from other search engines?

The Hub is not a garden-variety search engine. Its design provides a highly visual, interactive, and comprehensive overview of knowledge on CCA and DRR, and links to the people producing this knowledge. Its searches rely on terminology and keywords that are carefully curated for CCA and DRR communities. Making these fine-tuned searches possible is a PLACARD glossary that includes definitions of commonly used terms by using taxonomies for CCA and DRR. The glossary supports the discovery of new projects, organizations and individuals with key expertise. Thus, the Hub provides:

  • Dynamic and interactive visualizations of organizations, activities, and information that bridge topic-specific CCA and DRR knowledge networks.
  • Content (including articles, projects, and organizations) to help users find relevant evidence, expertise, peers, tools, methods, and good practice insights.

Why are these differences important?

Despite the overwhelming wealth of information available in the Information Age, a significant gap remains between research, policy, and action. We continue to see many, separate and unlinked activities taking place in parallel and in “silos” that do not connect with one another. This lack of connection leads to wasted talent, energy, and opportunities. We created the Connectivity Hub to generate synergies, open dialogues, and to foster collaboration and learning.

How do I begin?

Glad you asked! Here are the steps to get started:

  • Type a term in the search box or click on one of the “Popular searches” such as “flood”, “vulnerability” or “infrastructure”.
  • Click “Go” on a term of your choice, which will take you to the “Explorer” view.
  • Click on the crosshair of any search result. You will be able to explore that search topic in the context of other connected articles, organizations, topics, and people.
  • Or in Explorer view, use a search term to see what content is available. Refine the search if needed.
  • Click on the node title itself to show a summary of the content.
  • Underlined terms in this text are part of the PLACARD glossary for CCA and DRR. Hovering over this will provide a definition and in some cases “scope notes” on use of the potential different use/interpretation of the term by the CCA and DRR communities.
  • The button at the bottom of any content window takes you to the full content on the source platform, such as Eldis, BRIDGE, ClimateAdapt, PreventionWeb, and weADAPT.

What organizations are involved with the Hub?

PLACARD, (the PLAtform for Climate Adaptation and Risk reDuction) created the Connectivity Hub, which is designed and led by the Stockholm Environment Institute. The Hub links data from several European and global CCA and DRR platforms, including:

  • Global Resilience Platform, sharing innovative resilience solutions from around the world;

  • Climate-ADAPT, the European Climate Adaptation Platform;

  • PreventionWeb, the knowledge-sharing program of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster REduction (UNISDR);

  • Eldis, a knowledge-sharing platform on development issues, and BRIDGE, a specialized gender and development research and information service; both hosted by the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex); and

  • weADAPT, the global climate adaptation platform and network of the Stockholm Environment Institute.

You can contact [email protected] for more information.

Events

The Connectivity Hub team was at the 2019 European Climate Change Adaptation Conference in Lisbon, 28–31 May: Toolshed presentation on the Connectivity Hub and session – “Advancing ‘search & discovery’ for climate action: exploring the potential of linked (open) data and artificial intelligence” – on 28 May at 14:00 (#10572).

About

The Connectivity Hub is developed as part of the PLACARD project which is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation Framework programme. Grant agreement No. 653255.

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