Research team
Expertise
Dr. Hugo Marynissen holds a Doctoral degree from Cranfield University – School of Management (UK), and a Masters’ degree in Change Management from HEC Business School (France) and Saïd Business School (University of Oxford). The focus of his current research is on decision dynamics in crisis teams, safety leadership within so-called “High-Reliability Organizations”, and the role of resilience and crisis governance as a way to anticipate extreme events. In recent years he has researched, and published on: - Crisis Communication - Crisis Management - Normal Choas - Public networks in crisis management - Organizational resilience Between November 2020 and June 2021, Hugo Marynissen has been appointed as external expert to the Special Commission of the Federal Parliament in charge of the investigation of the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium. Since 2020, he is the coordinator of a longitudinal research project "Integrated risk and crisis governance of critical infrastructures: An analysis of the safety network in the Port of Antwerp", a collaboration between Port of Antwerp and the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Antwerp.
Fire Risk Evaluation and Mapping for Actionable Prevention (FIREMAP).
Abstract
Wildfires increasingly threaten critical infrastructure in Flanders—from healthcare facilities and industrial parks to airports and high-voltage power grids. Climate change and the risk of eco-terrorism make an integrated risk assessment more urgent than ever. Recent incidents demonstrate just how real the danger is for Flanders. 14.8% of Flanders is a wildland-urban interface (WUI). That is twice as much as in Greece and three times as much as in Spain. FireMap is a COOCK+ project of PXL University of Applied Sciences, KU Leuven, and the University of Antwerp, funded by VLAIO, with active involvement from fire departments, the healthcare sector, airports, energy companies, and government agencies. In Work Package 3, carried out by the Chair of Crisis Governance, we focus on the "cold phase" (i.e., before a crisis situation arises) to enable the actors involved in an integrated risk assessment—with a focus on fire prevention in the broader vicinity of critical infrastructure—to collaborate at the network level, while maintaining a strategic perspective and taking operational realities into account. Recent scientific findings (including Nowell et al., 2018; van den Oord et al., 2020; Vanlaer et al., 2022; Nowell et al., 2025) demonstrate that the ad hoc establishment of a network tasked with managing a crisis at the strategic level and coordinating the various (sub)tasks is invaluable for successfully combating disasters with a major societal and/or economic impact. For a variety of reasons, individual organizations are unable to cope with the complexity of crises, let alone assess them in advance and establish coordination among different actors. By collaborating within an organizational network (Kenis & Cambré, 2019), information, resources, and competencies can be shared and linked, enabling the realization of cross-boundary solutions. To cope with complex risks and environmental dynamics, emergency services, government organizations, and businesses must establish systems that enable adjustments. This ensures that they can better absorb shocks, remain effective, and achieve objectives when one or more organizations find themselves in an extreme or life-threatening situation. This does, however, require us to view crises in a fundamentally different way from traditional crisis management, where disruption is not a sudden, unexpected event but something that has been simmering for some time and is triggered either suddenly or very gradually. The key question, then, is: how can we prepare ourselves to anticipate disruption and turbulence appropriately? We aim to answer this question through this research. References:Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Albers Sascha
- Co-promoter: Marynissen Hugo
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Scientific Chair Crisis Governance.
Abstract
The Chair of Crisis Governance aims to further our understanding of crisis anticipation, management, and governance in an age of increased turbulence. The Chair will create and disseminate knowledge on how crisis governance principles and insights can help science and practice at the strategic and operational levels to appropriately develop, govern, and adapt to changing circumstances. The Chair wants to study how insights in different domains challenge existing paradigms and theories and valorize that knowledge for organizations and their members.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Marynissen Hugo
- Co-promoter: Albers Sascha
Research team(s)
Project website
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Chair of Crisis Governance
Abstract
The Chair of Crisis Governance aims to further our understanding of crisis anticipation, management and governance in an age of increased turbulence. The Chair will create and disseminate knowledge on how crisis governance principles and insights can help science and practice at the strategic and operational levels to appropriately develop, govern and adapt to changing circumstances. The Chair not only wants to study how insights in different domains challenge existing paradigms and theories, but also wants to valorize that knowledge for organizations and their members.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Albers Sascha
- Co-promoter: Marynissen Hugo
Research team(s)
Project website
Project type(s)
- Research Project