Modern Societies and Resilience – a Key to Success, Dan CHIRONDOJAN
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The document discusses building resilience in modern societies against emerging threats. It argues that as systems become more interconnected, threats that disrupt critical infrastructure and services also increase. To build resilience, it is necessary to strengthen cooperation across civil protection, operators, communities, research networks and consider challenges like climate change and cybersecurity. Successfully resisting, adapting and recovering from disruptive events requires viewing resilience as a long-term investment rather than just a cost. Bringing different actors together to increase resilience levels is key to addressing an increasingly interconnected and challenging world.
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Modern Societies and Resilience – a Key to Success, Dan CHIRONDOJAN
- 1. The European Commission’s science and knowledge service Joint Research Centre Modern societies & resilience: A key to success Dan Chirondojan, Director Directorate E: Space, Security and Migration
- 2. 2 A world of interconnected systems… ©CITRINEFP7project …and emerging threats
- 3. 3 Beyond Protection – Facing the Unknown We can’t foresee and get prepared for all possible disruptive scenarios…
- 4. 4 The resilience ecosystem Civil Protection Operators Communities People Networks Research • Critical Infrastructure Protection • Disaster risk management • Human resilience • Climate change • Cybersecurity • …
- 5. 5 We need to build continuity for our vital services! One Resilience
- 6. 6 An objective and a prerequisite Resisting, adapting, recovering Disruptive Event Recovery Action Time Functionality Stable Recovered State Disrupted State Stable Original State
- 7. 7 An objective and a prerequisite Resisting, adapting, recovering Disruptive Event Recovery Action Time Functionality Stable Recovered State Disrupted State Stable Original State Cost
- 8. 8 Thriving communities are resilient Resilience is not a cost but… an investment for long term sustainability ©OlivierLeMoal-Fotolia.com
- 9. 9 • How can we increase the level of resilience? • How can we bring closer the actors? • Which is the way forward? Implementing resilience in a world of interconnectedness and emerging challenges
- 10. 10 Stay in touch •EU Science Hub: ec.europa.eu/jrc •Twitter: @EU_ScienceHub •Facebook: EU Science Hub - Joint Research Centre •LinkedIn: Joint Research Centre •YouTube: EU Science Hub
Editor's Notes
- Our modern societies are rapidly evolving. The way we communicate, produce and consume goods is radically changing due to progress of technologies. High capacity communication networks, smart grids, mobile health, internet of things (just to mention few examples) are more and more part of our life. The limits between these various technological systems are nowadays blurred; from technical point of view, but also from governance point of view. The complexity of various systems and infrastructures and the interconnection between them are increasing exponentially. And this is not expected to stop. On the contrary it is poised to grow. That is because we continuously ask for better services, better products, less delays, no interruptions of service. But this is only one side of the coin. The number of threats and their sophistication is also evolving. More interconnectedness means that we open the door to new threats that could impact our systems and as a result our communities. Geopolitical risks and conflicts as well as terrorist attacks exert additional pressure to our communities which are already weakened due to underemployment and economic crises. This combined with longer term risks such as failure of climate change mitigation, water crises, ecosystem collapse, create an explosive mixture. Social instability may emerge, which would unequivocally lead to long-term negative impact on economic and social life.
- The business-as-usual approach would dictate to built barriers and protection mechanisms for all these threats, hazards, and disruptive events that may affect our societies. Is this however possible today? Can we really claim that we can foresee and prevent all these events from happening? Is it realistic to invest on the dream of 100% protection? This seems to be an utopia that will certainly lead to a dystopia.What we really need is to go the extra mile – beyond protection. And face the unknown prepared. We need a mindset shift, a mindset that focuses on resilience independently of the kind of hazards or threats. At the end of the day our concern should not simply be how to protect our societies against specific threats and hazards. Our main concern is making sure that vital societal functions continue to be offered to citizens, independently of the kind of hazards or threats that impact our communities. How can we do that? (The answer will come tomorrow, but I will present briefly the context). On the one hand, the scientific community is working on developing new ideas, knowledge, methods, tools, and best practices of protection and business continuity to create more resilient societies . Societies capable of resisting to disruptive events and recovering from these, societies with the ability to adapt in order to continue to operate in an acceptable manner for the citizen. This is where current scientific research focuses – both in JRC and internationally. The European Commission through its Horizon programme supports several projects that aim to produce the necessary knowledge on resilience in various areas, such as cybersecurity, climate change, disaster risk management, economy. The European Union is developing a large number of policies in these areas where resilience is integrated and seriously considered. Something on the European Commision here? For example the investment for relavant projects on the H2020 programme?resilience, regional aspect the ion here? For example the investment for relavant projects on the H2020 hysical or cyber threat programme?
- However, resilience is a multifaceted issue. It would be more adequate to refer to the term of Resilience ecosystem. It is not just the knowledge, the methods or the technological solutions. It is all these things together working in harmony. Science and technology alone cannot achieve anything without the support of the relevant actors. And the people without the right tools and knowledge cannot achieve much either.
- This is why, on the other hand, this brings us to the “One Resilience” concept. We need to bring closer (or together) and draw from the various disciplines, scientific communities, actors all these elements that constitute the resilience ecosystem. An ecosystem which currently is not as coherent as it should be in order to face the challenges of our interconnected world. But it is our challenge to make sure that we better link the various efforts taking place in parallel and -in several cases- in an uncoordinated manner. We do not lack effort or capacities – we lack better integration and collaboration. Across disciplines, across communities, across countries. At the end of the day, several challenges are global. They are born in a specific region or domain but may affect everyone. The example of Fukushima highlights this in the most dramatic manner.
- We all refer to resilience as an explicit objective – and it is certainly so. But at the same time it is a pre-requisite. A pre-requisite for sustainable economic growth and for establishing communities that thrive. Major disasters lead to long term economic consequences. Businesses tend to abandon disaster prone areas due to cost increases and disruptive change of the business model.
- This will lead to less jobs, less attractive communities and societies and finally a deadly spiral of underinvestment and economic crisis. To put it simply: If the community is not resilient, the community dissolves. It would not be a surprise if in the future the resilience performance of a specific region turns out to be even more a decisive corporate factor for new business and market opportunities.
- This is a key point. It counteracts the main argument raised by communities, authorities and businesses not to implement resilience, which is Cost. Taking into account what was said before, resilience should not be seen as a cost, it should be seen as an investment. An investment that brings further economic activity and long term prosperity. And if we go back to the One resilience concept, an investment that helps all actors yield more benefits from their investments. Seeing resilience from this perspective may facilitate the buy-in from citizens, public authorities and from the private sector especially in times of economic crises and scarce resources. It is the responsibility of the resilience community to showcase this positive aspect of resilience measures.
- So what is next? Action. Knowledge sharing. Working closer together. And this is the purpose of tomorrow’s plenary session. We will show you a snapshot of what is happening around the globe with the aim to provide food for thought and if possible answers to the following questions: How can we increase the level of resilience of our societies and communities? What kind of disciplines we need to bring closer in order to achieve this holistic objective? What is the way forward?