The 2014 summer school entitled “Prepare for high impact disasters: towards the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction” was organized on July 22–25, 2014 at Tohoku University and attended by 47 participants from seven countries. This year’s summer school consisted of a seminar with a series of presentations as well as group discussions on campus safety and regional priorities in DRR. A field trip was also conducted to Kesennuma City, which was very severely affected by the 2011 disaster.