Dismantling boundaries between citizen volunteers and emergency authorities – cocreating emergency response in Denmark

This paper discusses the cocreated emergency response to the climate related incident of coastal flooding in Jyllinge, Roskilde Municipality, Denmark. The field work revealed an otherwise undescribed phenomenon and unprecedented degree of cocreation of emergency response as citizen volunteers were involved at both the managerial and operational level in the response to the storm “Ingolf” coastal flooding. This entailed the co-seating of citizen volunteers with the official response incident command in the authorities command post. The paper discusses the phenomenon of professionalism in relation to cocreating emergency response with citizen volunteers, develops a framework of analysis for the phenomenon and concludes that cocreation of emergency response is indeed possible and may enhance the quality of the delivered emergency management service, making the ability to involve citizens in professional response part of emergency management professionalism.