Resilience Shift Programme.

Resilience engineering is one of the four research funding priorities in the Foundation’s strategy. The Foundation’s Foresight review of resilience engineering: designing for the expected and the unexpected, recommended that it establish and lead a programme to build resilience within and between critical global infrastructure sectors.

Implementation of this programme, launched in January 2016, occupies a key building block in our strategy delivery. The programme is designed to focus on sharing existing experience and knowledge within and between sectors, rather than doing further research, so it is an important part of the delivery of our strategic theme accelerating the application of research.

Following a competitive international call, the Foundation selected Arup as the host institute for the five-year, £10-million programme to build resilience in critical infrastructure. Together they have created The Resilience Shift.

The Resilience Shift is creating a movement to inspire and empower a global community to transform our ways of planning, financing, designing and building, and onwards to operating and maintaining, safe, sustainable and resilient infrastructure.

We need to know that our infrastructure networks and services will be able to absorb, and quickly recover from, acute shocks and chronic stresses, and adapt to a continually changing world. This thinking underpins the founding of The Resilience Shift initiative. Its proactive approach combines think tank, grant-making, and convening to influence policy, shape practice and share learning that will enhance critical infrastructure resilience.

Existing infrastructure systems are increasingly complex and interdependent, under pressure from the growing demands of population growth, accelerating urbanisation and climate change. They must be prepared for the threats we can anticipate, and respond to those we cannot predict or avoid, so that it continues to provide the essential services on which society depends. An urgent shift is needed in how we think about our infrastructure, and what must be done now to make it more resilient.

Through the creation of The Resilience Shift in partnership with Arup, the Foundation has become a catalyst for a global movement to collaborate and build a discipline of resilience engineering. The initiative, under its Global Executive Director, Seth Schultz, will ultimately contribute to a safer world through more resilient infrastructure, helping to achieve the Foundation’s charitable aims.

Find out more at The Resilience Shift