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The purpose of this paper is to understand the key challenges, approaches and lessons of the higher educational institutions (HEIs) in the context of COVID-19.

A survey was conducted to understand the key challenges being faced by the HEIs around the world during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 150 responses were collected from 65 universities, located in 29 countries.

The results show that 47% of respondents with defined universities believe their institutions lacked a permanent or dedicated emergency management office, and 41% said their HEIs lacked a general business continuity plan for an emergency. In universities with BCPs, 33% of the plans do not cover biological hazards and pandemic risk management, and 60% of the plans did not include conducting any advanced simulation exercises. More than 70% the responded said their instruction, information sharing and decision-making process were timely and open. The major challenges identified were a lack of adequate preparedness for pandemic and of pandemic-specific advanced simulation exercises. The next major challenges were the change in the mode of teaching to online lectures and working from home. Based on these challenges, a set of short- and long-term recommendations were proposed.

This was the first survey in academic institutions in post COVID-19 context. The findings will be useful for preparing for biological and other related hazards.

During the period of 2000–2009, a record 402 climate-related disasters occurred in the Southeast Asia region, and the number of geophysical disasters was 61 according to the International Disaster Database by Center for Research on the Epidemiology (CRED). The number of climate-related disasters is much higher than that of geophysical disasters, but due to small or medium scale of the events, attention and assistance to most of them have been limited. Although many people are affected by these disasters every year, in many cases, they do not have sufficient idea and knowledge on preparedness and disaster risk reduction (DRR).

The community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) approach has been taken by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as a common approach to build resilient communities in their disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts. The approach has been initially implemented in the developing world by NGOs, followed by international organizations like the International Federations of Red Cross and Red Crescent (Benson, Twigg, & Myers, 2001; Maceda, Gaillard, Stasiak, Le Masson, & Le Berre, 2009). The approach is now increasingly promoted among local governments in order to strengthen the links between the official disaster management system and community-based organizations (Kafle & Murshed, 2006). There are many case studies of DRR projects with community-based approaches by NGOs and local governments, and there are many variations as well (Heijmans, 2009).

There has been increasing advocacy for the inclusion of people with disabilities in disaster research and practice yet there are limited empirical examples that give voice to people with disabilities and their expereinces by consulting them directly. Conceptulising new methods that frame the role of people with disabilties as co-producers are essential for improving the representation of people with disabilties in the context of disaster research and beyond. The paper discusses how to facilitate disability inclusive research and introduces a participatory timeline tool that was co-produced by people with physical disabilities in Sindhupalchok, Nepal.

The participatory timeline activity utilised 3D printed counters to explore the experiences of people with disabilities during disaster events and their recovery processes, in this case, the 2015 Ghorka earthquake and the 2021 Melamchi Flood. The paper reflects on how to foster disability-inclusive environments by placing agency and ownership by people with disabilities at the centre of research practice.

This approach created an atmosphere of collaboration and supported co-researchers to reveal their experiences and knowledge on their own terms. The counter tool introduced could be adapted for different research inquiries and used alongside other methods which seek to facilitate the voices of people with disabilities.

The research paper adds to the limited body of litreature on how to conduct participatory research with people with disabilities in disaster contexts and more widely within Majority world contexts.