Recent disasters in Europe and worldwide have made one fact clear: forecasts and early warnings alone do not save lives. Despite increasingly accurate predictions of extreme weather and geohazards, communities too often remain unprepared, as emergency systems struggle to convert anticipation into timely, site-specific actions. The result is cascading failures, overwhelmed governance structures, loss of control during crises and preventable losses. And this can happen everywhere.

The project EVERYWHERE will tackle this systemic challenge by analysing and learning from emblematic high-impact events: the 2021 German floods, the 2024 Valencia floods, a European geohazard event, and Cyclone Freddy in Madagascar (2023). Based on this scenario-driven governance analysis the project will uncover why warnings fail to trigger effective response, and how governance can be redesigned to succeed under stress, co-designing and testing breakthrough pioneering approaches.