The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Societal resilience is the capacity of people, households, communities and institutions to anticipate, absorb and recover from shocks while maintaining wellbeing and dignity. The field studies how that capacity is distributed, why it differs and how it changes with population, technology and policy. This page defines the field, explains why it matters, what experts study and how it connects to other risks.
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The Society and Human Development field covers societal resilience, inequality, health, population change and the human consequences of risks and innovation. Experts in it study questions such as poverty and inequality and demographic transitions, with methods such as social and behavioural science as well as causal inference and impact evaluation. Its counterparts at GRF and GRA look at the same systems through governance and finance.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
The field draws on sociology, economics, demography, public health, geography, political science and anthropology. Its central idea is that risk is a product of hazard, exposure and vulnerability, and that vulnerability is socially produced: by income and assets, by access to services and protection, by social networks, by discrimination and by the quality of institutions.
Human development frames the goal: expanding the capabilities people have to live lives they value, including health, education, security and voice. A society is resilient when shocks do not permanently reduce those capabilities, especially for those who start with least.
The field also asks how societies change. Demographic transition, urbanization, digitalization and shifting norms alter family structures, care arrangements and the institutions people rely on, so resilience measured today may not hold for the next generation. Researchers therefore pair snapshots with longitudinal evidence that follows households and communities through time.
Who is exposed and who bears losses: poverty and inequality.
How ageing, fertility, migration and urbanization change exposure: demographic transitions.
Safety, rights, health and livelihoods together: human security and wellbeing.
Why people are forced to move and what protects them: humanitarian and displacement.
How trust and information shape collective response: technology and social cohesion.
Informal services and community resilience: urban social vulnerability.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Human security | Freedom from fear, freedom from want and freedom to live in dignity, as set out by the UN General Assembly. |
| Social vulnerability | The characteristics of people and groups that affect their ability to anticipate, cope with and recover from hazards. |
| Forced displacement | The movement of people forced to leave their homes because of conflict, persecution, violence or disasters. |
| Systemic risk | Risk arising from the interactions and dependencies within and between systems, where a shock can propagate and threaten the functioning of the whole. |
Social conditions determine whether a water shortage becomes a health crisis, whether a price shock becomes hunger, and whether a disaster leads to recovery or displacement. The field therefore connects to health, food, water, cities, work and finance, mapped on dependencies and consequences.
The governance of information and trust is convened by The Global Risks Forum (GRF) at Information Integrity and Public Trust.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.