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The coming into office later this month of Donald Trump as the 47th – and oldest – President of the United States has added an additional level of tension to what is already a tense and unstable geopolitical landscape that is facing increasingly challenging and potentially existentially threatening scenarios. So says Dr David Rubens, founder and chief of the Institute of Strategic Risk Management (ISRM), in the Institute’s 2024 annual report.
The ISRM has some 30 chapters, including in the UK and Ireland (London chapter chair is Alisa Sultmane); and across continents, from Mexico to New Zealand. David visited Jakarta in October and is due to return there next month. Among the Institute’s subjects lately has been Urban Resilience and Major City Management, including the running of a first Level 5 training course, which led to monthly webinars. The ISRM has set up a Strategic Steering Group of 21 participants from 17 countries. The next course will again be offered as a Free To Attend programme, with a ยฃ200 Certification Fee for those wanting to gain the formal qualification; it’ll run over five sessions of two hours each, from January 13 to 17.
Risks, as the ISRM sets out, are man-made and natural, whether extreme weather leading to (for example) flooding, or conflict over resources. David wrote that the northern, developed world ‘still seems able to ignore the impacts that are happening across the southern hemisphere, and the systemic famine, social unrest and political discord that has failed to reach our news outlets or consciousness’.
Internally, David (pictured speaking at IFSEC in 2019) pointed to three areas as focal points for 2025, towards making the world better, safer and more sustainable. He wrote: “The first is the continued focus on our academic activities, and the growth of both our academic networks and the Global Student Network. The second is to utilise our global network of Fellows more fully, to allow us to use that resource to develop our own activities whilst at the same time supporting our Fellows in their own activities, and thirdly, to put in place a governance structure that will allow the ISRM to move smoothly through its next stage of growth and development.”
He summed up: “There is no question that the world continues to be challenged on multiple levels and in multiple ways, from the global to the local. However, at the same time there is also a feeling that, as always, within chaos there is opportunity. Over the last five years the ISRM has established itself as a genuine global Institute of significance and influence, and we are both humbled and inspired by the amount of support we have received.”
For the report in full, visit https://www.theisrm.org/files/upload/annual_report_2024.pdf.
About the ISRM
Founded for security, risk or crisis management professionals, the ISRM includes the Centre for the Study of Wicked Problems. Visit www.theisrm.org.
