Projects

The projects of the Crisis Research Centre combine research and development with practical capacity building. We map needs, develop and test solutions, bring together local and international partners, and translate the knowledge generated through our projects into practical guidance, training, networks and local capabilities.

We believe that the value of a project should extend beyond its formal implementation period. Each project should leave behind usable knowledge, stronger cooperation, a practical solution or enhanced capacity that communities, local authorities and other partners can continue to build on.

Project focus areas

Decision-making

We study how individuals, organisations and the public sector interpret risks and make decisions before and during crises.

Local Crisis Capacity

We strengthen local-level capacity to cope with situations in which normal services and arrangements may not function fully.

Civil Protection

We test practical solutions that help improve the preparedness of individuals, communities and organisations and strengthen cooperation with the public sector.

Adaptation in Crises

We examine how lessons are learned from crises and from the experiences of other countries, and how new knowledge is adapted to local contexts.

From projects to practice

We use the knowledge generated through our projects to develop subsequent activities and solutions. The results of one project often become the starting point for the next pilot, training programme, practical guide or research question. Rather than treating projects as isolated activities, we see them as part of a continuous development process in which research, testing, implementation and accumulated experience reinforce one another.

Ongoing projects

Knowledge and Resilience Alliance of Key Organisers

The aim of the project is to strengthen community crisis preparedness and establish a foundation for the more systematic development of local crisis networks in three districts of western Tallinn: Haabersti, Mustamäe and Nõmme. The project brings together residents from different districts who want to contribute to the preparedness of their community, district and Tallinn as a whole, providing them with knowledge, practical skills and contacts they can rely on during a crisis.

The project is based on the understanding that crisis preparedness depends not only on official plans, guidance and emergency supplies. It also matters whether there are people in the local area who understand local conditions and needs, know how to act, and can help share information, connect people and identify those who may need support. The crisis networks developed through KRAKO are not intended to create a separate system alongside the city’s crisis management arrangements. Instead, they prepare local people and establish working relationships that can support the existing crisis management system when needed.

KRAKO

What are we doing?

Through the KRAKO training programme, we provide participants with an overview of how crisis management is organised in Estonia and Tallinn, how civil protection is structured, and what crisis preparedness means from the perspective of local communities and residents. The practical part of the training helps connect this broader system-level knowledge with participants’ own local area, experiences and potential roles.

We map participants’ existing knowledge, skills and experience in order to identify the capabilities already present within each group and to better understand which local resources could be relied upon. We also encourage the exchange of contacts and networking so that people from the same area, but with different backgrounds and experience, get to know one another and establish connections that can be maintained after the training and used if needed during a crisis.

Recognition:

KRAKO Crisis Network. Nominee in the special category “Promoter of Civil Protection in Tallinn”, Tallinn Entrepreneurship Awards 2026. October 13, 2026, Tallinn, Estonia.

Current

KRAKO | Mustamäe’s crisis network expands: nearly half of participants ready to take the lead in their community

KRAKO | The 5 Most Frequently Asked Questions in Nõmme

KRAKO | The 5 Questions We Hear Most Often in Mustamäe

Completed projects

Educational and community gardens for Disaster preparedness, Empowerment and Neighbourhood resilience

The aim of the project was to initiate a dialogue on the potential role of urban gardening, community gardens and educational gardens in crisis preparedness through the lens of food security. At an expert seminar held in Tallinn, participants discussed the opportunities for urban communities to contribute to individual and community food security, environmental awareness and crisis preparedness. The central question of the seminar was what urban gardening can realistically contribute to crisis preparedness.

Based on a review of the academic literature and input from the expert seminar, we produced a practical handbook and glossary to help communities, local authorities and other interested parties understand the realistic role that community and educational gardens can play in supporting food security and crisis preparedness.

EDENTallinn

What did we do?

Urban gardening is often approached primarily as an environmental, community or urban-space issue. In this project, we wanted to explore its potential role in food security, community cooperation and crisis preparedness. To do this, we combined knowledge gathering with the involvement of experts and practitioners and a public discussion.

The project provided the City of Tallinn with a publicly accessible Estonian-language knowledge resource and a basis for further discussion on how urban gardening, communities and local food capacity can contribute to municipal crisis preparedness.

Seminar presentations:

Nagel, A.-M. 2026. The Role of Urban Gardening in Food Security and Crisis Preparedness. The Role of Urban Gardening in (Food) Security 2026, Crisis Research Centre, 19 September 2026, Tallinn, Estonia.
Mäger, M. 2026. Experience Presentation: Establishing the Food Forest at Tammsaare tee 79b. The Role of Urban Gardening in (Food) Security 2026, Crisis Research Centre, 19 September 2026, Tallinn, Estonia.

Practical handbook and glossary:

The Role of Urban Gardening in (Food) Security and Crisis Preparedness. Tallinn: Crisis Research Centre. ISBN 978-9916-9237-7-1.

Points of Invincibility for Multi-level Adaptation

The aim of the PIMA project was to bring together experiences from Estonia, Sweden and Ukraine on the establishment and operation of resilience hubs, and to improve understanding of the role such centres can play in supporting the population during different types of crises. The project drew on the Ukrainian wartime practice of Points of Invincibility, where local support points help provide people with warmth, electricity, communications, water, information and other essential assistance during large-scale disruptions to basic services. The purpose was not to replicate the Ukrainian model directly, but to identify which principles could be applied in Estonia and Sweden and what would need to be adapted to local conditions.

The project demonstrated that a functioning resilience hub is not simply a suitable building equipped with emergency supplies. Effective operation also requires clear arrangements for management, staffing, services, accessibility, material capacity, communication, cooperation with the community, and links with local authorities and other organisations. Comparing Ukraine’s practical wartime experience with local-level needs in Estonia and Sweden made it possible to approach resilience hubs as part of a broader system of local crisis preparedness and to identify both shared principles and important context-specific differences.

PIMA

What did we do?

The project combined the exchange of practitioners’ experiences, case analysis, international seminars and research. We involved people working on local-level crisis preparedness and resilience hubs in Estonia, Sweden and Ukraine, creating opportunities to compare solutions already operating under real crisis conditions with local models that were still being developed. Particular attention was paid to how resilience hubs should be managed, what services they should provide, and how material preparedness can be connected with the capacities of local communities themselves.

We brought the project’s findings together in the practical PIMA report, which provides guidance for local authorities and resilience hub developers on planning, equipping and managing such centres and integrating them with local communities. The report was published in both digital and printed formats and has been distributed to interested organisations and individuals across Estonia. At the same time, we presented the project’s findings to local and international practitioners, policymakers and the academic community. Following the project, we launched the PIMA+ cooperation network to continue developing the resilience hub concept and practical solutions at a time when local authorities in both Estonia and Sweden are still shaping their local systems.

Seminar and conference presentations:

Tyshchenko, M. 2024. Points of Invincibility for Multi-level Adaptation. Eesti saatkond Kiievis, 09.12.2024, Kiiev, Ukraina.
Tyshchenko, M. 2025. Different Points of Invincibility. 26.03.2025, 1st PIMA online seminar.
Yakovlieva, Y., Dmytrnko, I., Goraburdo, N. & Koverznieva, K. 2025. Points of Invincibility for community resilience: experience of Ukraine. 09.06.2025, 2nd PIMA online seminar.
Nagel, A.-M. 2025. Points of Invincibility for Multi-level Adaptation: International Cooperation to Strengthen Community Resilience. Interreg Baltic Sea Region Follow-up Meeting: Building a Resilient Baltic Sea Region – Perspectives and Possibilities, June 17-18, Visby, Sweden.
Ringberg, L. 2025. Resilience in the Malmö Perspective. 11.09.2025, 3rd PIMA online seminar.
Nagel, A-M. 2025. Research part of the PIMA project. Points of invincibility for multi-level adaptation (PIMA): FINAL CONFERENCE, October 21, 2025, Malmö, Sweden.

Academic presentations:

Nagel, A-M., Nilsson, T., Nagel, H. & Tyshchenko, M. 2026. Preemptive Policy Learning from Ukraine: Local Adoption of Points of Invincibility in Estonia and Sweden. IRSPM 2026 Conference: Beyond Boundaries: Wellbeing, Innovation and the Future of Public Management, April 8-10, 2026, Perth, Australia.
Nagel, A-M., Nilsson, T., Nagel, H. & Tyshchenko, M. 2026. Building resilience through preemptive policy learning from Ukraine: case study of resilience hubs. IIAS 2026 Conference: Growth for Society: Collaborative governance, social innovation, and social value. Konkuk Institute of Health and Aging Society, November 17-20, 2026, Seoul, South Korea.

Publications:

Nagel, A-M., Nilsson, T., Tychshenko, M. & Nagel, H. 2026. Project Report: Points of Invincibility for Multi-Level Adaptation. Tallinn: Kriisiuuringute Keskus.
Nagel, A-M., Nilsson, T., Tychshenko, M. & Nagel, H. 2026. Kerksuskeskused kohanemisvõimes Ukrainas, Eestis ja Rootsis: kellele, milleks ja kuidas. Tallinn: Kriisiuuringute Keskus.
Nagel, A-M., Nilsson, T., Tychshenko, M. & Nagel, H. 2026. Звіт по проєкту: Пункти незламності для багаторівневої адаптації. Tallinn: Kriisiuuringute Keskus.

Empowering Väike-Õismäe for Community Civil Protection

The aim of the K-24 project was to establish an initial community-based civil protection capacity in Väike-Õismäe and to test how crisis preparedness can be strengthened in a densely populated urban environment where people depend heavily on electricity, water, heating and other centralised services, while community ties may remain weak. A local crisis preparedness survey conducted in preparation for the project showed that many residents were uncertain whether they could cope independently during prolonged service disruptions or another serious crisis. This highlighted the need to approach preparedness not only through individual supplies and knowledge, but also through community cooperation, contacts between neighbours and the preparedness of apartment associations.

Alongside supplies and practical skills, the project also examined how to encourage people living close to one another in a large housing estate — but often without knowing even their immediate neighbours — to communicate and prepare for crises together. High population density does not automatically create a strong community, and this tension was one of the project’s central starting points. We aimed to develop a model in which crisis preparedness does not depend solely on public authorities, but where residents also have a better understanding of local resources, can identify people who may need assistance, know relevant local contacts, and are able to act in a more organised manner before external assistance arrives.

As a result of the project, Haabersti City District received its first standardised community emergency supplies, which can be used when water, electricity or food supplies are disrupted and some residents require immediate support. The purpose of these supplies was to provide the local level with a practical capacity to establish community support points during a crisis and assist residents until normal services are restored or additional assistance arrives.

K-24

What did we do?

Nearly 400 residents of Haabersti City District took part in the training programme. Through thematic training sessions, we created opportunities for people living in the same area to get to know one another, establish new contacts and begin to view both their apartment association and neighbourhood as potential networks for cooperation during a crisis.

The project also expanded the CRISIS SKILLS podcast. Four new regular episodes were produced as part of K-24, together with a special episode that also served as a practical instructional video on preparing an evacuation bag. In one episode, Elari Kasemets, Head of the Tallinn Municipal Police Department, spoke openly about the protection of Tallinn’s residents, the role of the Tallinn Municipal Police Department, and what individuals and communities themselves can do to strengthen crisis preparedness in the capital. The special episode on evacuation bags was the first to combine the podcast with a more extensive visual learning format.

One of the most important lasting outputs of K-24 was Estonia’s first Apartment Building Community Crisis Preparedness Textbook, structured around three pillars of community preparedness: relationships, supplies and skills. The textbook was developed as a practical resource for residents and apartment associations wishing to begin strengthening preparedness in their building. It covers topics including engaging neighbours, preparing a crisis plan, mapping human resources, emergency supplies and evacuation. The textbook was also published in print and made available in Estonian, English and Ukrainian.

We also took the experience gained through the project beyond Estonia and brought international experience back to Väike-Õismäe. At an international conference on crisis preparedness and resilience held on Gotland, Sweden, the Crisis Research Centre presented Estonia’s experience of community-based civil protection, the work carried out in Väike-Õismäe and our approach to crisis preparedness in apartment buildings. The project concluded with an international seminar in Tallinn, where Estonian and Ukrainian experts discussed the role of communities in crisis preparedness. One of the seminar’s guests was Brigadier General Oleksandr Potii, Head of Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, who shared Ukraine’s wartime experience of protecting critical infrastructure and communities.

The impact of K-24 continued after the project formally ended. Based on the crisis preparedness survey conducted among Väike-Õismäe residents during the preparation of the project, Hannes Nagel, a researcher at the Crisis Research Centre, published a research article in 2026, taking the project’s practical starting point into the academic discussion. The Väike-Õismäe case made it possible to examine crisis preparedness at the level of a specific urban neighbourhood, households and apartment buildings, and represents one of Estonia’s earlier micro-level studies of neighbourhood-based crisis preparedness. In this way, K-24 provided Tallinn with trained residents, new community connections, emergency supplies, resilience hub capacity, a multilingual textbook, audiovisual learning materials, and knowledge that has subsequently been developed further in both practice and research.

Podcast episodes:

CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 05
CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 07
CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 08
CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 09
CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 10

Publications:

Nagel, H. 2025. Paneelmaja kogukonna kriisivalmiduse õpik. Tallinn: Crisis Research Centre. ISBN 978-9916-9237-2-6.
Nagel, H. 2025. Apartment Building Community Crisis Preparedness Textbook. Tallinn: Crisis Research Centre. ISBN 978-9916-9237-3-3.
Nagel, H. 2025. Підручник з підготовки до кризових ситуацій мешканців багатоквартирного будинку. Tallinn: Crisis Research Centre. ISBN 978-9916-9237-5-7.

Empowering Kohtla-Järve Communities for Civil Protection

The aim of the K-36 project was to strengthen the practical preparedness of communities in Kohtla-Järve for situations in which people may need to cope during the initial stages of a crisis by relying on their own knowledge, local contacts and available resources. The project took into account the particular characteristics of the city: dispersed settlement patterns, an ageing and multi-ethnic population, and relatively limited previous development of community-based crisis preparedness. Although Kohtla-Järve has a comparatively large number of potential sheltering locations due to its mining history, the more significant gaps concerned practical skills and the limited availability of local emergency supplies.

As a result of the project, the first community emergency supplies of this scale in Ida-Viru County were established for Kohtla-Järve, together with the capacity to equip two municipal resilience hubs in the city. The procured supplies make it possible to support the basic needs of at least 100 people during a crisis for as long as the supplies last, while also improving the capacity for organised and informed evacuation when necessary. At the same time, the city government gained a clearer overview of active community members whose knowledge and local networks can be taken into account in future civil protection planning.

K-36

What did we do?

As part of the project, we organised practical crisis preparedness training and a crisis planning workshop for residents of Kohtla-Järve and representatives of apartment associations. 50 apartment association members and leaders gained basic knowledge of coping with different crisis situations, supporting other people, and organising community preparedness. Alongside the training, local resources were mapped, potential roles and responsibilities were discussed, and a foundation was created for communities to act in a more organised way during a crisis, including before external assistance arrives.

We also recorded the first CRISIS SKILLS podcast episode dedicated to Ida-Viru County, focusing on crisis preparedness in Kohtla-Järve and the role of residents in civil protection. This helped bring the issues addressed in the project to a wider regional audience while highlighting the particular characteristics of a bilingual environment, local needs, and opportunities for strengthening community preparedness.

An important part of the project was also bringing Estonian- and Russian-speaking communities closer together through the shared issue of crisis preparedness. In a crisis, the people living in the area form a common local resource, and preparedness depends in part on whether the knowledge, skills and contacts of different communities can be brought together quickly for cooperation. The project created a practical foundation for this through trained community members, initial emergency supplies, the capacity to establish two resilience hubs, and stronger links between local communities and the city government. These provide a basis for future exercises, further development of emergency supplies, and continued strengthening of local civil protection.

Podcast episodes:

CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 06

Empowering the Kopli 93 Community Centre for Civil Protection as a Resilience Hub Pilot Project

The aim of the project was to test how an existing urban community and community centre could be used as a basis for developing local civil protection capacity by combining the knowledge and skills of community members, locally available resources and the material supplies needed in a crisis. K-93 was the first community-based civil protection pilot project of its kind in Estonia, moving beyond individual training activities towards the development of comprehensive local crisis capacity. In cooperation with Women’s Voluntary Defence Organisation, the Crisis Research Centre also developed a new training programme on survival in an urban environment, drawing on lessons from Ukraine.

As a result of the project, the Kopli 93 Community Centre developed an initial capacity to establish at least one larger resilience hub during a crisis, capable of supporting up to 100 people within the limits of available supplies. A range of equipment was procured for the community, including food and other essential supplies, generators and dual-use equipment required in crisis situations. Existing community activities, skills and resources were also mapped, and, where possible, individuals were identified who could assume responsibility for specific tasks during a crisis. This provided the community centre with an initial practical foundation for operating as a local resilience hub during a major crisis for as long as its resources and supplies allow.

K-93

What did we do?

As part of the project, 87 members of the local community gained basic knowledge of how to cope with different types of crisis situations. Thematic training sessions covered mental health first aid, physical first aid, cyber security, and coping in an urban environment during a crisis. From this wider group, a network of 20 key individuals emerged who developed practical basic knowledge of urban crisis survival and a clearer understanding of the tasks and responsibilities that a community can assume during a crisis.

The project also marked the launch of the Crisis Research Centre’s CRISIS SKILLS podcast, with the first four episodes recorded as part of the project. In this way, the project’s impact extended beyond the local community: in addition to trained participants, mapped resources and established emergency supplies, the Crisis Research Centre developed a new public format for sharing knowledge on crisis preparedness. The project left the Kopli 93 community with both material resources and strengthened human capacity that can provide a basis for local civil protection activities in an actual crisis.

Podcast episodes:

CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 01
CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 02
CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 03
CRISIS SKILLS podcast | 04

Concept paper:

KRUK, 2024 [RESTRICTED]. Civil Protection Capacity Concept for the Kopli 93 Community. Tallinn: Crisis Research Centre.

Triangle Post-Crisis Learning

The aim of the project was to strengthen the practice of post-crisis learning and to create a shared space for local-level crisis managers from Estonia, Sweden and Georgia to exchange experiences and reflect on how organisations learn from crises. The project was based on the understanding that crisis management does not end when a situation has been stabilised. It is equally important to review the decisions and actions taken, reflect on what worked and what did not, and use the experience gained to prepare for future crises. The project therefore focused on how post-crisis learning can become a deliberate and systematic part of organisational crisis management.

Comparing the experiences of practitioners from Estonia, Sweden and Georgia highlighted that learning from crises does not happen automatically within organisations. It requires opportunities to document and collectively review what happened, openness in addressing problems and mistakes, and mechanisms through which agreed lessons are incorporated into future working practices. An important element of the project was also the question of organisational memory: crisis experience has limited value if knowledge about what happened and what needs to change remains only in the memories of individual crisis managers or employees.

TPCL

What did we do?

The project brought together representatives of 12 local-level organisations from Estonia, Sweden and Georgia. Participants took part in three joint online seminars, while local expert meetings were held in each country to identify the factors that enable or hinder post-crisis learning. In Estonia, the activities involved local-level crisis management representatives from Tallinn, Pärnu, Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, as well as a representative of the Estonian Rescue Board. At the project’s final seminar, participants also tested a post-crisis analysis framework developed in Sweden and discussed how it could be adapted to the Estonian context. The experiences and conclusions gathered through the project were consolidated into an English-language concept paper providing organisations with practical guidance for organising post-crisis learning.

Work on post-crisis learning continued after the formal end of the project. In 2025, Hannes Nagel, a researcher at the Crisis Research Centre, published a research article that developed one of the project’s central questions further by examining organisational crisis memory. The article considers how crisis experience and the lessons drawn from it can be transformed into lasting organisational knowledge by embedding them in after-action reviews, working processes, guidelines, training, exercises and other institutional practices. In this way, the project not only created an international network but also provided a foundation for the further development of post-crisis learning and crisis memory in Estonia.

Seminar presentations:

Nagel, H. 2024. Crisis management lifecycle. 03.04.2024, 1st TPCL online seminar.
Ringberg, L. 2024. Systemic crisis management: experience of Malmö. 03.04.2024, 1st TPCL online seminar.
Kostytska, S. 2024. Importance of hindsight: analysing crises. 17.04.2024, 2nd TPCL online seminar.
Keudel, O. 2024. Learning in the midst of crises: example from Ukrainian local level actors. 03.05.2024, 3rd TCPL online seminar.
Kostytska, S. 2024. Groudhog Day in crisis management: how to learn when every day is a crisis? Ukrainian lessons from legal point of view. 28.05.2024, TPCL tripartite hybrid seminar.

Hybrid seminar:

Systematic learning from crises. 28.05.2024, TPCL tripartite hybrid seminar, Tallinn-Malmö-Batumi.

Publication:

Nagel, A-M., Phartenadze, G., Nilsson, T. & Nagel, H. 2024. TPCL Concept Paper: Post-Crisis Learning. Tallinn: Crisis Research Centre. ISBN 978-9916-9237-6-4.

Research publication:

Nagel, H. 2025. Kriisimälu instutsionaliseerimine After Action Review meetodi näitel. Turvalisuskompass, 9(2), 225−240. DOI: 10.15158/dryp-9m77