...in thinking

Resilience Engineered

Three films to demystify resilience, funded by The Resilience Shift, developed in collaboration with the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge.

Summary for Urban Policymakers

A summary for urban policymakers, presenting the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments in targeted summaries that can help inform action at the city scale.

Resilient Leadership

Real-time learning from the Covid crisis was captured over 16 weeks of interviews with senior leaders, providing insights into what makes resilient leadership, and how to lead for resilience.

...in practice

Infrastructure Pathways

A resource for practitioners in search of clear, easy-to-navigate guidance on climate-resilient infrastructure, compiled from hundreds of leading resources, and organized by lifecycle phase.

Resilience4Ports

Diagram of a working port

 

A multi-stakeholder, whole-systems approach is needed for ports to become low carbon resilient gateways to growth, as a meeting point of critical infrastructure systems, cities and services.

RR- HIDDEN

Resilience Realized

The Resilience Realized Awards recognise projects around the world at the cutting edge of resilience.

City Water Resilience Approach

CWI Wheel diagram

 

Download the step by step methodology to help cities collaboratively build resilience to local water challenges, mapped with the OurWater online governance tool, as used by cities around the world.

Resilience round-tables

Resilience Shift round-tables

The main objective of a planned series of Resilience Shift round-tables is to engage with senior-level practitioners, with expertise associated with the built environment, on the concept of critical infrastructure resilience. The purpose is to explore how infrastructure systems might be impacted by a range of possible shocks and stresses, how various decision makers would respond and what the consequential cascading effects of those decisions would be. The intention is that the round-tables will provide the basis for cross-sector learning and collaboration, creating a more informed view on interdependency, what is missing in governance frameworks and standards, and identifying measures to embed resilient design into modern infrastructure systems.

The round-table provides participants with the opportunity to explore real challenges within their sector. The round-table platform brings in other key stakeholders, encouraging inter-sector collaboration and communication. This bespoke round-table format provides a means for participants to engage in reflective and challenging discussions about their sectors and to productively explore how to engender change.

A printable booklet can be downloaded here.

Round-table events delivered and planned to date include:

  • Pilot round-table with Arup Fellows - February 2018, U. Cambridge, UK. See event report.
  • Ports - November 2018, London, UK. See event report.
  • City-scale modelling - January 2019, U.California Berkeley, USA. See event report.
  • Christchurch's reconstruction - February 2019, Christchurch, NZ. See event report.
  • Professional Associations and Institutions - December 2019, U. Cambridge, UK. See event report.

What is the format

The Resilience Shift round-tables are run in a two-part format (ideally split overnight) involving two workshop sessions:

  • Session 1 focuses on setting the context and creating a shared understanding of resilience and critical infrastructure.
  • Session 2 focuses on future pathways (responses to current and foreseen challenges) and identifying actions.

A specific agenda with timing and venue details will be provided for each round-table event.

What is expected of participants?

Participants should hold senior roles in their organisations and participate in both sessions for the round-table format to be effective. There is no charge for participation or any requirement to commit to specific future activity. However, it is part of the Resilience Shift’s agenda to support the development of communities of practice and increase collaboration on resilience-focused activity. An ambition of the round-tables it to help facilitate collaboration and shape possible pathways forward.

Some participants will be interviewed before the round-table, with the intention that the insights gained will be used to tailor the workshop sessions.

Who is leading the Resilience Shift round-tables

This team from Cambridge University Technical Services (CUTS) provides advisory support to the Resilience Shift. Convening round-tables is a major part of this activity. Following initial support from the Arup Foresight team in conceptualising the round-table process through a pilot event, the CUTS team are now facilitating a series of round-tables around the world.

Professor Peter Guthrie

Peter is the first Professor in Engineering for Sustainable Development in the United Kingdom. Having held this post since 2000 after a career in industry, he now focuses on research in engineering that covers technical, social and environmental issues.

Contact: pmg31@cam.ac.uk

Dr Kristen MacAskill

Kristen is a civil engineer with planning and design experience in the water and transport sectors. Kristen now runs Cambridge’s Construction Engineering Master’s programme – a professional-oriented course for emerging leaders in the built environment. Infrastructure resilience is a core theme of her research activity.

Contact: kam71@cam.ac.uk

Francesca O’Hanlon

Francesca is a civil engineer with experience in humanitarian aid and engineering for international development. Her PhD research looks at infrastructure and community resilience to climate related disasters.

Contact: fo249@cam.ac.uk

How do the round-tables fit into the Resilience Shift programme?

The Resilience Shift aims to build resilience within and between key critical infrastructure sectors. The round-tables are being run in parallel with the wider programme of grant-supported projects. The round-tables are designed to forge consensus (across academia and industry) around emerging technical issues, identify key challenges, opportunities and barriers, and identify priority areas for the Resilience Shift.

Scenarios for the workshop discussion will be developed with input from participants prior to the workshop, with provision of material from participants regarding assets and decision making processes (identified through semi-structured discussions with a round-table facilitator), to create a greater sense of reality for the examples to be explored in the round-table sessions.

During the round-table sessions facilitators will lead participants through a series of group and plenary discussions, working towards the insights and outputs.

Insights:

  • Increase in shared understanding of each stakeholder's ability to respond to a range of shock and stresses.
  • Identification of key policy/planning/design constraints.
  • Identification of possible actions and owners of actions to respond to constraints.
  • Identification of possible ideas which the Resilience Shift could support.

Outputs:

  • Round-table report of findings for online publication. Findings will be further published in academic and industry forums.
  • Participant agreement on priority actions to increase sector resilience.

It is anticipated that additional round-table specific outputs will be identified as part of the preparation process with participants.

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