Contemporary risks are increasingly complex and interdependent, reflecting a global reliance on tightly coupled socio-technical systems. Recent events illustrate how vulnerabilities in just-in-time supply chains and insufficient system resilience (e.g., lack of modularity and redundancy) can precipitate widespread disruptions. Notably, global impacts do not require large-scale shocks; disturbances within interconnected systems can escalate rapidly and cascade through systems, crossing sectoral and geographical boundaries.
Systemic risk assessment offers a critical framework for mapping these interdependencies, understanding their dynamics, identifying leverage points, and informing interventions that enhance resilience and reduce cascading failures. However, this raises pressing analytical, policy and governance questions. This working group seeks to advance systemic risk scholarship and practice.
Meet the team!
Lara Mani
Assistant Research Professor at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER)
Pia-Johanna Schweizer
Dr. Pia-Johanna Schweizer leads the Research Group Systemic Risks at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Germany. A sociologist by training, her research focuses on systemic risk, risk governance, and deliberative decision-making under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity. She also investigates approaches to support decision-making in disaster risk management and aims to improve multi-level governance through enhanced engagement, communication, and risk management.
Her work spans multiple world regions and hazard types, including seismic events, floods, droughts, and climate-related risks, addressing citizens, stakeholders and decision-makers from municipalities to national and international agencies. Her current research centres on the propagation of systemic risks in society, multi-hazard/multi-risk phenomena, and strengthening risk governance. Through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration with partners from science, policy, business, and civil society, her work informs governance strategies and policy recommendations for managing systemic risk in complex, interconnected systems.
Reinhard Mechler
Research Group Leader and Principal Research Scholar
Systemic Risk and Resilience Research Group in the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Program.
Sirkku Juhola
Professor, University of Helsinki, Finland, Linköping University, Sweden, Western Norway Research Institute, Norway.
Working Group Updates
Below you can find the most recent updates from members on activities associate with this working group as well as current documents and news.