Systemic Risk and Resilience (SYRR) aims to assess and support the management of systemic anthropogenic and environmental risks.
The SYRR research group analyses the increasingly systemic socio-ecological risks associated with global and local change, and with policy, practice and civil society co-generates options for building resilience.
Global change through rising physical and social interdependencies is leading to increasingly systemic and existential risks that lead to cascading impacts and potentially intolerable burdens on communities and societies across the world.
SYRR develops and applies agile systems science to address social-ecological risks that are embedded in complex systems and characterised by potentially cascading, irreversible and existential consequences. We identify risk drivers, model network interactions, assess probabilistic outcomes and co-develop stakeholder-driven options with policy, practice and civil society that are applicable across scales.
Our approach for addressing existential and systemic risk combines advanced quantitative modeling and qualitative research with empirical assessment and soft systems analysis.
SYRR research is conducted along the following thematic research lines:
1. Systemic Risk Assessment and Management
Advance and apply quantitative estimation methods to assess emerging systemic risks and disaster resilience.
2. Socio-Ecological Resilience
Develop and apply ecological network principles to the resilience in socio-ecological systems.
3. Co-production, Engagement and Experiential learning
Effectively apply and develop participatory methods with policy and practice to create impact.
4. Risk and Resilience Policy and Practice
Further develop and apply methods to inform risk management and climate adaptation decision-making in planning, coordination, and policy formation, with attention to complex multi-stakeholder and multi-criteria contexts.
We focus, inter alia, on risk and resilience associated with climate change, disasters, food webs, finance and pandemics. SYRR work builds on activities and experience gained from the previous IIASA programs on Risk and Resilience (RISK) as well as Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) and Evolution and Ecology (EEP).
Resilience labs
In order to address complex resilience problems, SYRR implements Resilience Labs. These labs bring together research, policy and practice in transdisciplinary co-generative exercises using quantitative and qualitative research methods for creating enhanced insight and impact.
Resilience labs held and planned:
- Limits to adaptation workshop held (see paper).
- Resilience in the Loss&Damage space: Expert-elicitation workshop in December 2024 (see project site).
- Polycrisis and systemic risk (planned for 2025).
- Multi-hazard and complex risk (planned for 2025).
- Resilience in economic and financial systems (online series in planning).
Staff
News
04 October 2024
Countries under fiscal pressure from recent disaster events
02 September 2024
Enhancing global collaboration to build community resilience against multiple climate-related risks
27 March 2024
Rising waters and sinking communities: exploring the scope for transformation and resilience in riverine Bangladesh
Events
University of Applied Arts, Vienna
IIASA colleagues presenting at the 5th Circular Strategies Symposium
Focus
17 October 2024
Navigating multi-hazard risks: building resilience in a systemic risk landscape
IIASA researchers Robert Sakic Trogrlic and Stefan Hochrainer-Stigler explore the growing complexity of natural hazards and their interconnected impacts on communities. Their research offers insights into the challenges faced by communities worldwide and underscores the importance of building more resilient systems in an interconnected, increasingly hazard-prone world.
31 January 2024
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
Xuxia Li spent the past year as a guest research scholar at IIASA. She reflects on her experiences at the institute and her research journey to date, which was made possible by the China Scholarship Council.
Publications
Zisopoulos, F.K., Fath, B. , Toboso-Chavero, S., Huang, H., Schraven, D., Steuer, B., Stefanakis, A., Clark, O.G., Scrieciu, S., Singh, S., Noll, D., & de Jong, M. (2025). Inequities blocking the path to circular economies: A bio-inspired network-based approach for assessing the sustainability of the global trade of waste metals. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 212 e107958. 10.1016/j.resconrec.2024.107958. Liu, J., Xu, X., Qi, Y., Lin, N., Bian, J., Wang, S., Zhang, K., Zhu, Y., Liu, R., & Zou, C. (2024). A Copula-based spatiotemporal probabilistic model for heavy metal pollution incidents in drinking water sources. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 286 e117110. 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2024.117110. Wu, W., Wang, Z., Wu, K., Chen, Y., Wang, S., & Niu, X. (2024). Urban resilience framework: A network-based model to assess the physical system reaction and disaster prevention. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 109 e107619. 10.1016/j.eiar.2024.107619. Ismail, S.A., Tomoaia-Cotisel, A., Noubani, A., Fouad, F.M., Šakić Trogrlić, R., Bell, S., Blanchet, K., & Borghi, J. (2024). Identifying vulnerabilities in essential health services: analysing the effects of system shocks on childhood vaccination delivery in Lebanon. Social Science & Medicine 358 e117260. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117260. Yang, Y., Keating, A., & Sourn, C. (2024). Measuring community disaster resilience for sustainable climate change adaptation: Lessons from time‐series findings in rural Cambodia. Disasters 48 (4) e12647. 10.1111/disa.12647. (In Press)