Operationalising Societal Resilience as a Local Resilience Capability

This Operationalising Societal Resilience as a Local Resilience Capability report, authored by Dr Judy Scully, Professor Duncan Shaw and David Powell (Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK and National Consortium for Societal Resilience [UK+]) is the final output of a research programme entitled ‘Towards a Resilient Democracy’. The report summarises the recommendations for the resilience sector, from across the research programme.

The National Preparedness Commission commissioned this 18-month ‘Towards a Resilient Democracy’, research programme which was funded by the JRSST Charitable Trust. The research programme has delivered a series of outputs including a report into Societal Resilience Initiatives During Covid-19; a literature review of evidence on communicating effectively with the public during a crisis; and a case study review of international examples of resilience-building activities involving civil society.

The recommendations included in this last report for the research programme focus on how local resilience capability can be leveraged to ‘operationalise’ resilience at societal level, encouraging citizens and communities to get involved in a resilient democracy. They show the need to support local resilience partnerships in leveraging their knowledge of systems, networks, and what works locally, acknowledging that this is likely to need a mindset shift away from centrally-designed, universal solutions.