This study takes a starting point the vulnerability  of the society resulting from both nature and man-made threats as well as accidents with the danger of life and health, environment and values. When crises and emergencies occur, organizations are required to deal with these in a professional manner. This puts increasing demands on managers to have sufficient knowledge on how to handle and lead a successful response and how to plan continuous development of the crisis management system. This master’s degree programme offers a management-oriented education for personnel responsible for emergency management and crisis response. The programme targets leaders, managers and other staff holding safety and preparedness responsibilities in both public, private and voluntary organizations as well as professionals within the civilian and military government emergency response agencies. Cooperation and an effective interplay between the different participants in emergency response are highlighted, including combined civilian and military operations. An important goal of this programme is to establish networks for knowledge and experience exchange among emergency response leaders. In this study program, we also emphasize innovation and research as a tool for continuous improvements of the preparedness system. This experience-based programme is part-time and organized in sessions.