Summary

Sara is co-Director of the Centre of Excellence in Defence, Risk and Resilience (CEDRR) and a Professor of Risk and Organisational Resilience and Curriculum Director for the MSc Risk, Crisis and Resilience Management and MSc Risk and Safety Leadership (DA) programmes. She is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), a Fellow of the Security Institute (FSyI) and a Security Risk Management Certified Professional (SRMCP). In addition, she is also a member of the BSI CAR/1 Continuity and Resilience Committee.

She has worked with London Fire Brigade, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, Hampshire Constabulary, HEIs and other public and private sector oganisations in the areas of risk and crisis management and decision making.

She has published international refereed journal articles considering risk management, learning from failure, crisis management and moral disengagement. She has supervised doctoral students on topics including the effect of sanctions on Russia for German organisations, crisis management, developing an information security culture, embedding ERM in Saudi Arabian mining projects and security culture in aviation.

Biography

Sara joined the Faculty of Business and Law (BAL) in 2007 and designed and developed the MSc Risk, Crisis and Resilience Management programme and the MSc Risk and Safety Leadership (DA) programme.

She has served as the Risk and Security Theme representative on the University Global Challenges Research Fund Delivery Group and as the interim lead for the combined 'Economy and Business' and 'Policy and Governance' sub-group of the University Resilient Communities Research Centre. Sara also served two terms as the Subject Group representative on the Faculty Ethics Committee.

Since joining BAL, she has been involved in the development of simulations for crisis management teaching, overseen the development of the two MSc risk courses and gained accreditation for the MSc Risk, Crisis and Resilience Management from the Institute of Risk Management (IRM), giving graduates of the programme GradIRM post-nominals in addition to their degree qualification.

Research interests

Sara is interested in research that develops resilience, both at an individual and organisational level and in improving risk and crisis management. She was involved in the development and assessment of the Exercise Unified Response (EUR) simulation exercise, the largest simulation in Europe. Specific current topics include:

  • learning from failure
  • operationalising lessons learned
  • simulations for learning and crisis management
  • resilience to terrorism
  • risk perception and communication

She is happy to receive informal enquiries relating to research in any of the above indicated areas.

Teaching responsibilities

Sara teaches on a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in the area of risk management and also research methods. These include Strategic Risk and Leadership, Crisis Management and Continuity, Research Methods, and Business for Biosciences. She is module coordinator for the postgraduate modules Strategic Risk and Leadership, Crisis Management and Continuity and the Risk Dissertation.

Media availability

Sara is happy to take emails from the media on her research and is aware of the needs to respond to journalists in a timely manner. Please contact her directly at sara.hadleigh-dunn@port.ac.uk.