Emmanuel Raju

Emmanuel Raju is an Associate Professor at the Global Health section of the Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, where he also serves as Director of the Copenhagen Centre for Disaster Research (COPE). He holds an Extraordinary Associate Professor position at the African Centre for Disaster Studies, North-West University, South Africa, and is a Climate Research Affiliate with the Red Cross Climate Centre since 2023.

• PhD from Lund University, Sweden (2013)
• M.A. in Disaster Management from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India (2009)
• B.A. in Economics, Political Science and Sociology from St. Joseph's College, Bangalore University, India (2007)

Raju's research focuses on disaster risk reduction, disaster recovery, governance, and the integration of climate change adaptation with disaster risk reduction. His work spans disaster risk creation, disaster memory studies, and international disaster frameworks. He has conducted extensive field research in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, and Denmark. Raju regularly collaborates with World Weather Attribution on climate attribution studies and serves as a Disaster Risk Reduction expert with the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), having been deployed to Myanmar in 2014-2015.

His recent research output demonstrates a strong focus on climate attribution science, examining how climate change influences extreme weather events and their societal impacts. His work bridges academic research with practical disaster risk management applications, particularly in vulnerable regions like the Horn of Africa, South Asia, and urban contexts globally.

• Outstanding Reviewer for 2017 by Disaster Prevention and Management, Elsevier Publications
• Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Young Scientists Programme (2017-2020)

Raju leads multiple significant research projects including a €5.2 million EU Horizon 2020 project on disaster resilience, a DFF-funded project on Disaster Risk Creation in Urban Resettlement Processes (5.9 million DKK), and a Ministry of Foreign Affairs project on Climate Change Attribution and Vulnerability in Kenya (10 million DKK). He serves on the editorial boards of several prestigious journals including Communications-Earth and Environment (Nature Portfolio) and Disaster Prevention and Management.

As Director of COPE, Raju oversees a major inter-institutional research center focused on disaster studies. He also leads core courses on the Master of Disaster Management program at the University of Copenhagen, including Introduction to Disaster Risk Management, Disaster Recovery Planning and Development, and a field course on Vulnerability and Risk Assessment Methods in Sri Lanka.