As well as lessons learnt from the response to COVID-19 there is a much wider lesson to be learnt about how the UK identifies, prepares and responds to threats and risks, such as to our safety, our national security and from climate change. In Monday’s Financial Times, academics from Cranfield University signed a letter.
They believe the UK must shift from simply classifying threats using a traditional risk-based probability versus consequence assessment, to a more detailed analysis including their interdependencies, social impact, cascade and recoverability. You simply cannot continue to quantify risk on a basic X Y graph, said Prof David Denyer, Professor of Leadership and Organisational Change at Cranfield.
Dr Simon Harwood, Director of Defence and Security at Cranfield, said: “Our preparedness needs to look across the whole of the resource spectrum at the nation’s disposal. Too often the response to a crisis, is to call up the armed forces but what if they were deployed at scale in a future combat? A new approach is needed which identifies risks and resources across the board rather than in silos.”
Professor Jim Harris, Professor of Environmental Technology at Cranfield, added: “You can have the strongest armed forces in the world or the fastest growing economy but if you have failed to prepare for the threat of climate change and its associated risks such as famine, drought, flooding, fires and war, then you are failing your citizens and your natural environment.”
Their letter:
COVID-19 was not a ‘black swan’. Similar events were widely predicted and listed as the nation’s biggest risk (UK National Risk Register 2017), so why were we not better prepared both to prevent it and recover from it?
The lessons from COVID-19 must not only be learnt for responses and preparations for future pandemics (MPs criticise UK’s handling of coronavirus pandemic, Financial Times, 19/05/2020). They must be learnt for wider threats such as to our national security, our safety, and of a potentially more overwhelming emergency ahead, that of climate change.
We need to consider not just the immediate responses to these threats but what long-term plans can be put in place to secure the resilience of our society and our natural system.
We believe that the UK should implement a new approach to quantifying risk, and our preparations and ability to recover from crises. This must include all “Five Capitals”: Natural, Human, Social, Built and Financial and their interdependencies and feedbacks, that make up the system in which we live.
This would involve a shift from simply classifying threats using a traditional risk-based probability versus consequence assessment, to a more detailed analysis including their interdependencies, social impact, cascade and recoverability through a new connected approach to resilience.
As a nation, we must focus on building adaptive capacity in organisations and infrastructure, and business and Government must proactively invest in resilience to future crises where there isn’t yet an immediate economic argument.
As we have seen with COVID-19, too often, investment in resilience measures are made during or after a crisis. If we are to build a more resilient nation it is vital we embrace a new approach.
Yours,
Professor David Denyer, Professor of Leadership and Organisational Change; Professor Graham Braithwaite, Director of Transport Systems; Dr Simon Harwood, Director of Defence and Security; Professor Jim Harris, Professor of Environmental Technology; Professor Paul Jeffrey, Director of Water; and Dr Simon Jude, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Decision Making.
