How well prepared is the UvA for an acute crisis?
Whether it’s a cyberattack that renders Canvas unusable, protesters occupying a building or a pandemic that brings the entire university to a standstill: the parliamentary inquiry reveals that a crisis is just around the corner. So what is the UvA’s crisis preparedness actually like?
Now that the parliamentary inquiry into the handling of the coronavirus pandemic is forcing politicians to reflect on their actions during the greatest crisis of recent years, a question arises: what exactly did the UvA learn from that period? At a time when it sometimes feels as though one crisis has barely subsided before the next emerges, the university must be prepared for every conceivable scenario. Jaap Weijermans, Head of Integrated Safety and Security, and Christa Boer, Dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG) and chair of the decentralised crisis team, discuss the UvA’s crisis preparedness.
Pandemic
Anyone who has listened to experts in recent years knows that the question is not so much whether another pandemic will occur, but when one will break out and grip the world. Yet drawing up a detailed contingency plan that prescribes exactly how the university should respond in such a situation is not straightforward, Weijermans emphasises. “What we learned during the coronavirus pandemic forms the basis of what we know, but every crisis is different from the last, so there will always be a need for fine-tuning,” he explains. “In addition, our scope for independent action as a university is fairly limited. We are not in the lead; we follow national government policy.”
So it is not the case that the UvA has a vast emergency stockpile of face masks sitting in a cupboard. “Look at what is happening in Congo now with Ebola, a completely different type of virus. Everything we did during the coronavirus pandemic to prevent infections would be insufficient in a situation like that.”
Nevertheless, according to Weijermans, the UvA is in a stronger position today than it was six years ago. “The main thing we learned is how to switch quickly from in-person to online teaching. That infrastructure has improved.”According to Boer, the university would also pay greater attention to “the human side” of such a disruptive crisis nowadays. “I think that, if another pandemic were to break out, we would place much greater emphasis on the loneliness and resilience issues experienced by young people. That is an area in which we have made real progress.”
Weijermans and Boer emphasise that resilience is now high on the UvA’s agenda. “The Day of Resilience that we recently organised is a concrete example of that,” says Weijermans. “It is based on the conviction that preparation, awareness and cooperation are essential in an uncertain world.” Boer adds: “We also reflect on our social responsibility in this regard. It concerns our academic expertise in areas such as cyber resilience or disinformation, and the question of how a university fulfils its societal role.”
Cybersecurity
Hackers who managed to steal data from UvA students and staff earlier in May via Canvas, exposed the vulnerability of such digital environments. It is a scenario that the university has taken seriously for years. “That is why we have introduced all kinds of measures to protect our environment,” Weijermans explains. “We scan our networks as thoroughly as possible, monitor for suspicious activity, and secure our system with firewalls, antivirus scans and multi-factor authentication.”
According to Weijermans, lessons were learned from 2021, when a hacking group managed to infiltrate the UvA’s digital environment. “But you can never guarantee 100 per cent security. You defend yourself against what you know, while at the same time such hacking groups are constantly developing new ways to launch attacks.” By using longer passwords and paying more attention to privacy, the UvA is trying to become more digitally resilient. “But the weakest link is often the human factor,” Weijermans adds. “You only have to click on one wrong link and the security can be bypassed. So we need to stay alert.”
Prolonged power outages
Whether caused by an overloaded grid or a military action, experts say the likelihood of a multi-day power outage is becoming increasingly realistic. So realistic, in fact, that the UvA recently ran a training exercise based on this scenario, Boer says. “A power outage was simulated in order to test what does and does not work in such a situation. Take toilets, for example: they stop functioning after about half an hour during a power cut because the sewage system becomes overloaded.”
In such cases, parts of the university switch over to emergency power supplies, Weijermans explains. “There are a few essential systems that we need to keep running. These include emergency lighting and fire alarms, but there are also research activities connected to backup power.” This includes departments within Medicine, where medication must be kept refrigerated, as well as research at the FNWI that needs to continue running at all times. “In the past, no one took into account the possibility that entire buildings might need to be connected to emergency power, but nowadays we are looking at how we can expand that further,” says Weijermans.
Where power outages initially fall largely under facilities management, Boer emphasises that the longer-term consequences could potentially extend further. “Many students and staff do not live in Amsterdam, so not everyone can simply go home. In such cases, is there a place of shelter available at the university? We are currently actively practising that scenario.”
Demonstrations
Demonstrations, counter-demonstrations, occupations and acts of vandalism: in recent years the UvA has had considerable experience with them. Yet when a protest truly escalates, there is not much the university itself can decide, says Weijermans. “A lot is beyond our control. As soon as there is vandalism or intimidation and the safety of students and staff is at risk, the UvA files a report; from that point on, the municipality and the police take over. Even if a building is occupied, the decision to evacuate is not ours, it is made by the triangular authority.”
So rather than in curing crises, it is in preventing them that the UvA has a role to play. Boer outlines the dilemmas she faces as a dean: “You want to give demonstrations space, but you are also responsible for safety. To maintain that balance, we have a handbook with a fixed structure, but in the end every demonstration is still a new situation. That is difficult to capture in a handbook. That is why you always have to keep thinking carefully for yourself, and stay in dialogue with all parties involved.”
Shooting incidents
It may sound somewhat extreme, but according to Weijermans this is also a scenario the UvA takes seriously in its preparations. “It would not be unthinkable for us to run a training exercise this year based on a shooting incident on campus, together with the emergency services. It is important that we know exactly how to act in such a situation.” Although the open nature of many UvA buildings would make them vulnerable in such a scenario, making them less accessible is not currently under consideration, Weijermans says. “In theory you could think of such measures, but we are not considering them at present. The openness of the campus is the guiding principle.”
