Systemic Risk and Resilience (SYRR)

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.  

Studying systemic risk and resilience in this context includes:  

• Taking a systems approach for understanding and modelling the interconnected drivers of multiple and compound risks across scales.
• Utilizing a network perspective for studying complexity in socio-ecological systems.
• Analysing failure and limits of conventional risk management and adaptation in complex, dynamic and adaptive systems.
• Developing and carrying out empirical and process-based resilience measurement for addressing key risks.
• Generating systemic resilience in relevant local to global socio-ecological systems through co-generating effective and applicable policy options that address risks as well as create developmental co-benefits. 

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).