Project overview
HERoS is a Horizon 2020 project funded under the ‘SC1-PHE-CORONAVIRUS-2020 – Advancing knowledge for the clinical and public health response to the 2019-nCoV epidemic’ call. As a social sciences research project, HERoS addresses the need to understand the social dynamics of the outbreak and the related public health response. The work will be conducted between April 2020 and 2023.
The overall objective of HERoS is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the response to the Covid-19 outbreak by generating actionable knowledge four areas: governance, models in epidemics, medical supply chains, online misinformation.
Governance
HERoS seeks to understand and model different co-ordination structures and governance arrangements. The objective is to identify bottlenecks; develop procedures for efficient information sharing across countries and hierarchical levels; and to propose policies for improved crisis governance, focusing on responders to public health emergencies.
Epidemiological and behavioural modelling
HERoS models the impact of local policies and human behaviour on the spread of the disease. The aim is to guide public decisionmaking in conditions of deep uncertainty.
Medical supply chain management
HERoS evaluates the impact of cascading effects across global supply chains and provides recommendations to improve management of medical supply chains.
Online misinformation
HERoS studies the co-spead of online misinformation and fact-checks with the aim of developing a new method to retrieve actionable information from social media in order to detect rumours and misinformation early.
Impact
This project will innovate social science research in epidemic outbreaks and combines methodological and process innovation which connects multiscale epidemics modelling, policy-making, governance, information sciences and supply chain management. Through integration with the humanitarian planning and decision-making processes, HERoS contribute to more efficient and effective policies and governance structures. HERoS makes use of collective intelligence approaches to support self-organisation of decision-makers at different levels to improve the epidemics response locally on the ground in real-time while contributing to more efficient information management, netcentric governance and logistics.
The HERoS Consortium
The consortium brings together the resources of 11 participating organisations from six European countries – Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland, France, Italy – and the United States, each excelling in their respective field and with significant research experience. Expertise areas include: humanitarian logistics and supply chain management (Hanken), epidemiological modelling and policy design (TU Delft), crisis governance (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), machine learning and information sciences (Open University), public health services (Nordic Healthcare), space research and geoinformation (Crisis Information Centre), UAV development (SQUADRON), health emergency responders (Polish Center for International Aid, Italian Red Cross, Project HOPE) and project management (ARTTIC).
HERoS at Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships week 2022
The HERoS project will hold a briefing session on 10 May 2022 at 11h CET as part of Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks - an event organised by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - to present research findings of the past...
![[Open-access publication] Epidemiological modelling in refugee and internally displaced people settlements: challenges and ways forward](https://www.heros-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/open-access-publication-400x250.jpg)
[Open-access publication] Epidemiological modelling in refugee and internally displaced people settlements: challenges and ways forward
Professor Tina Comes, who leads the HERoS team at TU Delft, co-authored a new open-access publication on epidemiological modelling in refugee and internally displaced people settlements. Citation Aylett-Bullock J, Gilman RT, Hall I, et al Epidemiological modelling in...
HERoS research informs new study about Ukraine war misinformation
HERoS research on the co-spread of COVID-19 online misinformation and fact checks paved the way for a new study by Open University on false claims and their corrections in the context of the war in Ukraine. A summary of preliminary findings can be found here.
; The team conducting online #misinformation research within HERoS at @OpenUniversity @kmiou published an article in @_TCglobal about the possible consequences of Elon Musk's potential purchase of Twitter on content moderation. @halani @T_M_Farrell @evhart
Elon Musk could roll back social media moderation – just as we're learning how it can stop misinformation
Elon Musk will need to tackle false information on Twitter, say researchers.
theconversation.com
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101003606.
