No place in the world is immune from disasters: earthquakes, floods, extreme weather,industrial accidents, terrorist attacks, epidemics. The key to reducing mortality anddamage is advance planning. Those at risk need to learn how to react to specific events(e.g. earthquakes). And to do this they also need "soft skills": communication andunderstanding of information under conditions of stress, problem-solving with partial orcontradictory information, decision-making in the face of competing demands. DREADED'sproposes an innovative, technology-based teaching methodology to meet theseneeds. The proposed methodology will provide cost-effective training to a broad rangeof different target populations: members of the emergency forces, decision-makers inlocal and central government and in industry, school teachers, school principals, as wellas pupils in primary and secondary education. DREAD-ED methodology is based on theconcept of experiential learning: to acquire new competences, learners should beplaced in situations where they can experiment under safe conditions. To this end, theproject will adopt a blended strategy in which classroom teaching is complemented bytutor-supervised role-playing in a PC-based, online Virtual Environment, accessible fromtheir homes and offices. Within the virtual environment, learners from differentbackgrounds will cooperate to simulate group interactions and individual decisionmakingduring a disaster. At the end of each session, learners and tutor will watch anddiscuss recordings of the session, identifying strategies leading to improved outcomes.DREAD-ED will document the proposed methodology, design and implement the virtualenvironment, design the specific scenarios to be used during the training, set up andmanage the technological infrastructure required to deliver the training, and test thetraining on three test sites in France, Germany and Italy. The tests will take place in tworounds of evaluation. The first round of "formative evaluation" (in year 1) will bedesigned to improve the design of the methodology and the technology tools; thesecond "summative evaluation" (in year 2) will test its effectiveness in terms of use,drop-out rates, learning outcomes and user satisfaction (satisfaction of learners,teachers and other stakeholders). The trials will involve different disaster scenarios (anearthquake, an escape of poisonous gas from a chemical factory, pollution of a majorriver) and different target populations in each country. The evaluation of outcomes willbe based on a shared evaluation protocol. A major effort will be dedicated todissemination and exploitation. This effort will include two international seminars (inGermany and in Italy), publications, contacts with media and the creation of a publicweb site.