CIVIL RESEARCH GROUP SEMINAR
Friday 13 May 2016 12.00
Room S0.20/21
Resilient Design and the search for combinational expertise
Jon Coaffee, Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
ABSTRACT
In recent years, resilience ideas have extended the performance of risk management and
sought to advance ways of coping and thriving in an uncertain and volatile future premised
upon advancing an all-encompassing, integrated approach to engage with future uncertainty.
Significantly implicated in this endeavour has been cities as a result of the frequency and
severity of recent crises that have channelled attention to vulnerable physical assets. Drawing
on then results from a number of interdisciplinary and inter-professional EU-wide and RCUK
projects focused on operationalising resilience in cities, this talk will map a transition from
protection to resilience in how a range of built environment professionals have sought to deal
with complex risk and the tensions elicited in the paradigm shift/transition from risk
management towards resilience. Also highlighted are the implications for organisational
governance in seeking holistic and integrated ways of assessing risk across multiple systems,
networks and scales and how social and physical scientists need to integrate their expertise.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Professor Jon Coaffee, holds a Chair in Urban Geography in PAIS and an Exchange Professorship at New York
University. He currently Directs the University’s Urban Science work through the Warwick Institute for the Science
of Cites, runs the Resilient Cites lab and co-leads the Global Research Priority on Sustainable Cites (with Ian
Guymer Engineering). He has held a large sequence of EPSRC, ESRC, AHRC and STFC and EU research grants
focused upon how ideas and principles of resilience can be embedded within the built environment and the
practices of those responsible for urban development. This work has focused especially upon national security
threats, climate change and critical infrsture protection. This work has been co-produced with a range of
governmental and professional stakeholders.
This seminar is open to all and refreshments are
provided. For more information, contact Dr Stefano
Utili by email at s.utili@warwick.ac.uk