Since 1986, AJEM has published an estimated 2,000 peer-reviewed research papers from Australia, New Zealand and around the world.
This growing body of knowledge has documented the tremendous expansion in emergency management planning and policy, the growth in rigour in academia and practice, the transfer of research within the sector and the adoption and testing of improved approaches to much of how we plan, respond and renew after disaster events.
In its 40th year of publication, AJEM is publishing reflections from readers around the world to recall their favourite and most influential paper(s).
Associate Professor Melissa Parsons
University of New England
AJEM Editor-in-Chief
The importance of queer community resilience
By Billy Tusker Haworth
Volume 37(1):31–32, 2022
https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/ajem-january-2022-the-importance-of-queer-community-resilience
Submitted anonymously
Why is this paper significant to you and why has it held your attention?
LGBTQIA+ vulnerabilities remain a key challenge for disaster management research, policy and practice. It also takes an opportunity to highlight the capacities and resilience qualities of LGBTQIA+ people and groups.
How has this paper influenced your work? Or, how has this paper had a significant influence in this area of emergency management?
I am now embarking on a research PhD on LGBTQIA+ personnel's experiences working in Australian emergency services.
Beyond 2026, what's next in this field of research or practice that builds on this paper?
Addressing the challenges of translating research into disaster policy and practice.
New approaches to assessing vulnerability and resilience
By Phillip Buckle, Graham Mars and Syd Smale
Volume 15(2):8–14, 2000
www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUJlEmMgmt/2007/17.pdf
Submitted by: Melissa Parsons
Department of Geography and Planning, University of New England, Armidale
Why is this paper significant to you and why has it held your attention?
This paper introduced me to disaster resilience. As an environmental scientist, I had been doing river research using the Resilience Alliance body of work about resilience in social-ecological systems. When I started writing and teaching a unit on natural hazards I came to realise, with the help of the definitions and ideas in this paper, that disaster resilience was a divergent social science concept that I should delve into. So, I guess that Buckle et al. seeded an interest that has led to my ongoing learning, teaching, and research in disaster resilience. Perhaps most importantly, the Buckle et al. paper explained the differences and similarities between disaster vulnerability and disaster resilience. That Australian communities may simultaneously be at risk, vulnerable, and have agency and resilience remains one of the most important highlights from this paper for me, and one of the most important practice foundations to disaster preparation, mitigation, response and recovery.
How has this paper influenced your work? Or, how has this paper had a significant influence in this area of emergency management?
The paper also introduced me to the idea that agency and capacity could be operationalised into elements that support resilience (such as sustainability of social and economic life, established networks, resources and skills, and social infrastructure) and that these could subsequently form the basis for assessing resilience. My research to develop the Australian Disaster Resilience Index applied the same idea, where we assessed disaster resilience as a set of 8 capacities (or elements) that represent our defined system of supporting resources.
Beyond 2026, what's next in this field of research or practice that builds on this paper?
Concepts of disaster risk, vulnerability, and resilience have been studied and applied almost in a decades long sequence, and generally as separate concepts. I’d like to hope that in an era of increasing natural hazard complexity and impact, that theoreticians and practitioners can integrate the cognate ideas of risk, vulnerability, and resilience into new and thoughtful ways to support and serve communities.
Changing the rules of the game: mechanisms that shape responsibility-sharing from beyond Australian fire and emergency management
By Blythe McLennan and John Handmer
Volume 27(2):7–13, 2012
https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/informit.476937774529897
Submitted by: Jim McLennan
Adjunct Professor, La Trobe University School of Psychology and Public Health
Why is this paper significant to you and why has it held your attention?
The paper was the first critical analysis I read of the then Federal government's newly announced policy of ‘shared responsibility’. Because I was so heavily involved in post-Black Saturday field research involving interviews with householders who had been impacted by disaster-level bushfires I had not really paid attention on the emergence of the policy. Due to my background in industrial and organisational psychology, I was not really attuned to the importance of the wider socio/political contextual issues for any programs aimed at improving community and householder bushfire safety. The paper by B McLennan and J Handmer was an eye opener.
How has this paper influenced your work? Or, how has this paper had a significant influence in this area of emergency management?
It made me sadder, but wiser. In its wake I became less naively optimistic about improving levels of community and householder bushfire safety amid climate change and the increasing frequency and severity of natural hazard dangers.
Beyond 2026, what's next in this field of research or practice that builds on this paper?
I am no longer actively involved in community and house holder bushfire safety research. But I remain convinced that the focus must remain on raising community-level awareness of natural hazard threat and preparedness so that this translates in householder awareness and preparedness. The power of so-called ‘descriptive norms’ remains unsurpassed: householders tend to do what they see other householders (like ‘them’) do about potential hazards.
To contribute
We want to hear from you about your favourite or most influential paper. All you need to do is to revisit AJEM’s vast content and reflect on the paper(s) that have been novel, inspirational and even transformative. Provide a few short answers to questions about why that paper was significant to you, how it has influenced your practice and what might be built on from the paper. Selected reflections will be published in AJEM throughout 2026.