News
2024
August: Anne was interviewed by BBC Scotland The Nine programme about the riots in England and how to stop their spread
July: Anne was interviewed by the Edinburgh Research Office as part of a collection of short impact videos they are making for their Engagement and Impact Hub
11-12th June: We ran a knowledge exchange workshop that brought together 45 stakeholders from government groups, first responder organisations, and academia in UK emergency response policy and practice to share our project findings, agree next steps and identify avenues for impact
June: Anne was interviewed for Sky News about crowd safety and social norms at Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour
May: Anne was a speaker at the PPLS Impact Festival 2024, for the panel, ‘Maximising impact from interdisciplinary research’
March: Anne gave a presentation at LSE department, ‘Trying to understand how and why the public respond to safety guidance in emergencies’
March: Anne gave a keynote presentation and workshop to the National Crisis Centre (NCCN) as part of the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union strategy to strengthen national resilience
February: We are delighted to announce a publication of a new book ‘Major Incidents, Pandemics and Mental Health’ where Anne has co-written a chapter with Chris Cocking. You can read it here.
19th January: Anne visited the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and gave a talk ‘Understanding public response to first responder instructions during evacuations’.
2023
20th December: It has been a productive year for the 'Simulating the impact of first responder communication strategies on citizen adherence in emergencies' project! You can read all about our exciting activities from the year, including our excellent new team member, pre-prints, podcast interviews, presentations, and awards in our 2023 Newsletter here!
The entire team wish you a wonderful time over the festive period. We look forward to sharing more with you in 2024!
8th December: We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded a CAHSS Knowledge Exchange and Impact grant from The University of Edinburgh. The funding is to run a knowledge exchange and impact planning workshop in May as part of our project. The event will bring together representatives from first responder organisations, government groups, pedestrian modellers, and academics.
4th December: Read a summary of the day of the Women Talking Fire’s inaugural conference here.
16th November: Dr Anne Templeton gave a keynote presentation ‘How and why the public responds in emergencies: A behavioural science approach’ at Women Talking Fire Conference in Leeds. The slides can be accessed here.
14th November: Dr Anne Templeton gave a talk ‘How and why the public responds in emergencies: A behavioural science approach’ to an MSc course at the Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
October: We are delighted to share with you our latest article titled 'Group processes in emergency evacuation', published in the Fire & Risk Management Journal. Available to read here.
24th October: We are very excited to share a new pre-print! You can read the pre-print of our paper 'Agent-based models of social behaviour and communication in evacuations: A systematic review' here.
16-18th August: The project team met for a 3-day workshop in Edinburgh, discussing Simulating the social identity approach
9th August: Dr Anne Templeton presented to the Cabinet Office our project findings so far.
28th July: Congratulations to Dr Yunhe Tong - our superstar postdoctoral research - for graduating his PhD in Bristol!
19th July: We presented our project findings so far to the Communities National Preparedness Group.
10th July: We wrote for SFPE Europe about our work on group dynamics during evacuations. Read our artice here.
29th June: At the Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics conference, Anne presented work from the systematic review on how communication and social behaviour are operationalised in evacuation models.
09th June: Dr Anne Templeton presented research on first responders’ approaches to the pubic in emergencies to the Turkish Psychological Association.
06th June: Our new editorial ‘Social Identity Modelling’ is now out! Read it here.
19th May: We have released the headline findings from our interviews with first responders. You can read our report here to find out about the challenges first responders reported facing when coordinating with the public in emergencies, their views on best practice for communication, and our upcoming activities.
15th May: Our paper ‘Information sharing and support among residents in response to fire incidents in high-rise residential buildings’ is now out! It’s free to access here.
10th May: Dr Anne Templeton has been promoted to Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology! Her new role will begin in August this year.
2nd May: We have a new paper out about how residents of HRRBs respond to fire safety guidance. You can read out paper ‘Who and what is trusted in fire incidents? The role of trust in guidance and guidance creators in resident response to fire incidents in high-rise residential buildings’ here.
15th March: Our systematic review into how communication and social behaviour is modelled in evacuation simulations has been accepted to the Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics conference 2023.
08 March: Our related ESRC ‘Perceived threats and “stampedes”: a relational model of collective fear responses’ project report (led by Prof John Drury) is out! It details our research into how members of the public respond in emergencies, including who they attend to when deciding response. You can read the report here and learn more about the project here.
23 February: We are delighted that we will be presenting the results of our interviews with first responders at the European Association of Social Psychology 2023 conference in Krakow.
30 January: Welcome to Yunhe Tong who is joining the team as our Postdoctoral Research Associate! We are delighted to have Yunhe on the project. Find out more about his work here: https://firstrespondercommunicationstrategies.com/y-tong-1
11 January: Dr Anne Templeton gave a talk titled ‘Simulating the impact of first responder communication strategies on public behaviour in emergencies' at Public Response to Perceived Threats seminar, London. You can view information about the related project here: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/crowdsidentities/projects/stampedes
2022
28 December: We are excited to share all the activities we have been engaged in throughout the year. From the entire team, we wish you a very happy festive period and all the best for 2023! Read our annual newsletter here.
25 November: Dr Anne Templeton took part in a BBC World Service - Crowd Science podcast entitled ‘How do we behave in crowds?’. You can listen to the episode here: BBC World Service - CrowdScience, How do we behave in crowds?
6 September: Congratulations to Dr Anne Templeton for receiving the Early Career Award from the BPS (British Psychological Society) Social Psychology Section. Anne gave her Early Career Research Award talk ‘Using social psychological theory and methods to inform models of collective behaviour for crowd management’ at the BPS Social Psychology Section 2022 Annual Conference in London, UK. For more information click here.
31 August: Dr Anne Templeton presented Using social psychology to understand evacuee behaviour to FireCo. The webinar can be accessed here (requires registration) https://www.fireco.uk/project/using-social-psychology-to-understand-evacuee-behaviour/
5-8 July: Dr Anne Templeton hosted a week long series of in-person Collaboration meetings for the FLF ‘Simulating the impact of first responder communication strategies on citizen adherence in emergencies’ project, in the University of Edinburgh. Anne: ‘I believe we made substantial strides forward about the core tasks of the project and our end vision’
22 June: Congratulations to Dr Anne Templeton who has been chosen as the Early Career Award recipient by the British Psychology Society Social Psychology Section! Anne will present her paper ‘Walking together: Behavioural signatures of psychological crowds’ at the annual conference in September, focusing on how the paper led to her current research.
25 May: Dr Anne Templeton took part in an interview for the Fire Science Show podcast. You can hear the episode 52 'More realism in evacuation modelling with Anne Templeton’ here.
11 May: Dr Anne Templeton presented a talk ‘Evacuation behaviour in psychological crowds’ to the CATA research group in the Université Clermont Auvergne and the Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive.
5 May: Dr Anne Templeton presented a Ted Talk ‘Simulating the impact of first responder communication strategies on citizen adherence in emergencies’ to promote the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship at EMS2022 conference in Glasgow
24 March: Dr Anne Templeton took part in a BBC World Service Deeply Human podcast where she talked about how feeling in a group with others in the crowd can impact experiences and actions at crowd events. You can see the short summary video here and listen to the whole podcast here.
8 February: Dr Anne Templeton presented a talk entitled ‘The (mis)use of controversial terminologies in evacuation research’ to the working group on Human Behaviour in Fires by the International Association for Fire Safety Science. The talk can be found on youtube here.