Background
The research explores the important social-psychological features that are needed to embed interoperability within organisational culture of the Emergency Services and has been applied to changing practices and developing training. Impact will be achieved at the organizational level by the Emergency Services by working directly with end-users to change attitudes, beliefs and behaviours linked to joint working. The beneficiaries of this research include the Emergency Services and wider society who receive their care, with the scope to build international impact via future grant applications.
Research
My early research (2013-2021) identified why decision-making, and teamwork was challenged during emergencies. I identified how indecision during emergencies was characterised by decision inertia – a psychological process of redundant deliberation about negative consequences for action and inaction (Power & Alison, 2017a; 2019) – and that teamwork is often derailed by social challenges linked to competition, goal conflict and trust (Power & Alison, 2017b)
The proposed impact case study builds upon my earlier research, which identified the problems with emergency teamwork, towards a solutions-focused approach to improve joint working between the Emergency Services. I have been working with JESIP - the cross-disciplinary team made up of expert interoperability practitioners from the Emergency Services and strategists from the Home Office. They are governed by the JESIP Interoperability Board of strategic level emergency commanders and the JESIP Ministerial Board and provide strategic direction and investment in national Emergency Services interoperability.
Specifically, there are three research strands of underpinning research:
1. Psychology of Interoperability (PI, £125K, ESRC, Oct 22- Sep 23, Awarded)
I am PI on a 12-month UKRI project exploring the psychological components that are required to improve Emergency teamwork. This research is funded through the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) who are part-funded by the UK intelligence and security agencies and UK Home Office via the ESRC. In emergency teams, joint working is termed interoperability, which we have defined as “a shared system of technology and teamwork built upon trust, identification, goals, flexibility and communication” (Power et al., 2023). Further outputs from this research include an interview study (paper in prep) to identify ways to promote interoperability, the development of a behavioural codebook of interoperability behaviours from video recorded data, and a training survey to explore the utility of interoperability training.
2. Developing Psychological Interoperability Training (PI, £230K, ESRC, Oct 23-Mar 25, Pending, as Co-I on the £1M+ CREST extension)
I am awaiting news on a funding application to develop psychologically informed interoperability training to be tested with the Emergency Services. This project is part of a centre extension to CREST where I am listed as Co-I on the £1M+ grant, and PI on the £230K Interoperability Training piece at Liverpool.
3. Advancing Emergency Services Interoperability: Optimising Digital Tools to Promote Joint Organisational Learning (PI, £40K PIF Oct 23-Jul 24, Pending; Future UKRI application to Cross-research council responsive mode fund, tbc June 2024, £1M+, in prep).
The third strand of my research is to apply my research to support the development of new interoperable technologies. A finding from our current interview study was that
digital interoperability tools were vastly underutilised (Power et al., 2023). This includes JESIP’s Joint Organisational Learning (JOL) platform, which provides a space for responders to share insights about joint working, but only a fraction of the ~210,000 Emergency Service employees (~5000) use it, and minimal lessons (390) have been shared. JOL’s impact is limited due to a lack of guidance on maximising its utility. This research will enhance interoperability by informing and optimizing JOL. It will be used to underpin a £1M+ follow-on grant to the UKRI cross research council responsive mode pilot scheme: round 2 (to be announced June 2024) to build a multi-disciplinary team with collaborators from Psychology, Management, Computer Sciences and JESIP, and building upon my networks across universities including Liverpool, Lancaster, Edinburgh, and Sussex, to develop innovative technologies to improve Emergency Services interoperability.
Impact
There is potential impact to be both national and international as detailed below:
1. Changing the official definition of interoperability as used by JESIP and the Emergency Services: The the new definition of interoperability that we developed (Power, et al., 2023) is hoped to be adopted nationally into the JESIP joint doctrine. Our definition offers concrete and practical areas for targeting interventions to improve interoperability. Impact will be achieved by presenting findings to the JESIP Interoperability Boards (due to meet in Sept 2023), and having our paper cited in official guidance.
2. National roll-out the psychology of interoperability training: If we secure the additional funding, we plan to develop and test a psychological training programme on the psychology of interoperability. We want to design training to be accessible to emergency planning and training centres across the UK. As such, building a “train the trainer” module is key to our success. This could be achieved by making freely available training videos that could be hosted open access online, or in the Resilience Direct secure portal accessible by emergency workers. I would also be keen to travel the country delivering the training to offer in-person instruction.
3. Increasing government funding and investment in emergency services training: A challenge with the proposed research is that the capacity for the emergency services to commit to joint training is incredibly limited due to budget cuts and staffing issues across the sector. I want my research to be used as evidence for why there needs to be greater investment in the emergency services to ensure that they are properly funded. There needs to be resilience within the organisation to allow employees to regularly engage in training, so that they are not having to test joint working for the first time when responding to a real-world emergency. Paper 4 (detailed above) will specifically address this and be used to lobby relevant government stakeholders. I will also be writing a Heseltine Policy Briefing on this topic in line with their new theme on policy in an age of uncertainty. I will also present findings to the JESIP interoperability boards.
4. Developing the Joint Organisational Learning Tool: Should my PIF funding be successful, I will be working directly with JESIP to evaluate the JOL platform, drawing on psychological insights (e.g., organisational incentives to bolster use), and practical design ideas (e.g., the display). JESIP’s use of these recommendations will so direct impact, and also provide the springboard for future competitive UKRI funding to build a cross-disciplinary team to further developments on interoperability technology nationally and internationally, building on JESIP’s collaborations with international equivalent bodies in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Dr Nicola Power
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