This chapter provides lessons learnt from the JRC on emergency management. Two or three decades ago, crisis situations were problematic due to lack of information. Now, policymakers, practitioners and politicians are more in a situation of information overflow and challenges of making sense of contradictory information under conditions of complexity and socio-technical interdependencies. Science and knowledge enable a shift from reactive to proactive risk management. Five lessons learnt from the JRC focus on the (1) tight feedback loops between scientific developments and their application in the real world of practitioners, policymakers and politicians; (2) choosing the right information, provided to the right people, in the right time, at the right format; (3) visual approaches such as communication with maps; (4) importance of trust and trustworthiness in relations with practitioners and decision-makers; (5) plea for transdisciplinary learning through networking and partnerships.
Key takeaways: •Science and knowledge enable a shift from reactive to proactive risk management.•Scientists, policymakers and practitioners must work together. In particular, in the emergency management context, it is essential to create tight feedback loops between scientific developments and their application in the real world. Trust and transparency are crucial in this relationship.•Scientists must learn what information to provide to whom at what time and in what format, so the information is directly relevant in the decision-making process of practitioners.•In a disaster context, maps are essential communication tools. They can help build a narrative and can show evolution in time, historical background, thematic information and context information.•No expert or single organisation can be sure to provide comprehensive science advice on everything alone. For a science for policy organisation, it is crucial to establish long-term partnerships with complementary organisations to leverage and exploit expertise and skills beyond the own organisation.Please note that this chapter was drafted before the global COVID-19 outbreak. Some of the advice will inevitably benefit from further reflections from managing this crisis. Learning the lessons from COVID-19 response and the role of science in it is a crucial task to the wider science for policy community. The JRC is fully committed to it and will share the results in future publications.