IDEAS Factory - Resilient Futures

2030年，英国的关键基础设施将是什么样子？在2050年？它的弹性会有多大？政策制定者、非政府组织、实业家和用户社区现在所做的决定将影响这些问题的答案。考虑到基础设施的弹性，如何才能更好地为决策提供信息？该项目将考虑英国能源和交通基础设施的未来发展，以及这些系统对自然和恶意威胁和危害的复原力，提供a)关键基础设施部门之间的相互关系如何影响英国当前和未来复原力的新视角，b)可概括为解决不同部门和场景的最先进的社会科学/工程方法，以及c)交互式演示模拟，为广泛的决策者和利益相关者操作原本模糊的复原力概念。来自公共政策研究所、土木工程师学会、科学和技术委员会的最新报告，和内阁府一致认为，实现并保持韧性是英国关键基础设施面临的关键挑战。他们对主要问题的评估也是一致的。首先，各方就国家基础设施面临的主要威胁达成了共识：i)气候变化；ii)恐怖袭击；iii)系统性故障。第二，英国基础设施体系的复杂性、全局性和互联性是各方关注的重点。我们的关键基础设施在其治理和负责实现和维持复原力的机构数量方面都高度分散，从国家政府到地方服务机构，甚至是社区团体，如地方复原力论坛。此外，国家关键基础设施内不同技术系统之间的跨部门互动没有得到很好的理解，关键的相互依存关系可能被忽视。内阁办公室新成立的自然灾害小组等倡议正在努力解决这一问题。设立负责监督和提高联合复原力的这类机构是所有四份报告中的一项关键建议。然而，这些机构目前缺乏两个关键资源：(1)充分了解我们目前和未来基础设施组织的复原力影响；以及(2)有效地向所有相关利益攸关方传达这种理解的工具，对他们来说，复原力一词目前除了抽象意义外很难理解。复原力未来项目将通过与来自许多部门和治理级别的相关利益攸关方合作，直接参与这一背景，以实现第(1)和(2)项的阶段性变化。为了实现这一目标，我们将关注未来，而不是现在的英国基础设施。这有两个原因。首先，我们打算推动韧性思维的范式转变--从鼓励机构专注于保护自己的当前资产不受当前感知的威胁的支离破碎的短期主义，转向长期相互依存的视角，认识到破坏性事件和被扰乱的体系的性质都在不断演变，我们现在实现韧性的努力绝不能损害我们未来的韧性。其次，聚焦于2030/2050年的时间框架，将讨论从此时此刻充满政治色彩的背景提升到一个有更多讨论、学习和组织变革空间的背景下。关注当前的复原力*必须克服有关机构为其当前流程和做法辩护、解释其过去的中断管理记录等的自然倾向，然后对话才能转移到参与改进、学习和变革的潜力。

What will the UK's critical infrastructure look like in 2030? In 2050? How resilient will it be? Decisions taken now by policy makers, NGOs, industrialists, and user communities will influence the answers to these questions. How can this decision making be best informed by considerations of infrastructural resilience? This project will consider future developments in the UK's energy and transport infrastructure and the resilience of these systems to natural and malicious threats and hazards, delivering a) fresh perspectives on how the inter-relations amongst our critical infrastructure sectors impact on current and future UK resilience, b) a state-of-the-art integrated social science/engineering methodology that can be generalised to address different sectors and scenarios, and c) an interactive demonstrator simulation that operationalises the otherwise nebulous concept of resilience for a wide range of decision makers and stakeholders.Current reports from the Institute for Public Policy Research, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Council for Science and Technology, and the Cabinet Office are united in their assessment that achieving and sustaining resilience is the key challenge facing the UK's critical infrastructure. They are also unanimous in their assessment of the main issues. First, there is agreement on the main threats to national infrastructure: i) climate change; ii) terrorist attacks; iii) systemic failure. Second, the complex, disparate and interconnected nature of the UK's infrastructure systems is highlighted as a key concern by all. Our critical infrastructure is highly fragmented both in terms of its governance and in terms of the number of agencies charged with achieving and maintaining resilience, which range from national government to local services and even community groups such as local resilience forums. Moreover, the cross-sector interactions amongst different technological systems within the national critical infrastructure are not well understood, with key inter-dependencies potentially overlooked. Initiatives such as the Cabinet Office's new Natural Hazards Team are working to address this. The establishment of such bodies with responsibility for oversight and improving joined up resilience is a key recommendation in all four reports. However, such bodies currently lack two critical resources: (1) a full understanding of the resilience implications of our current and future infrastructural organisation; and (2) vehicles for effectively conveying this understanding to the full range of relevant stakeholders for whom the term resilience is currently difficult to understand in anything other than an abstract sense. The Resilient Futures project will engage directly with this context by working with relevant stakeholders from many sectors and governance levels to achieve a step change in both (1) and (2). To achieve this, we will focus on future rather than present UK infrastructure. This is for a two reasons. First, we intend to engender a paradigm shift in resilience thinking - from a fragmented short-termism that encourages agencies to focus on protecting their own current assets from presently perceived threats to a longer-term inter-dependent perspective recognising that the nature of both disruptive events and the systems that are disrupted is constantly evolving and that our efforts towards achieving resilience now must not compromise our future resilience. Second, focussing on a 2030/2050 time-frame lifts discussion out of the politically charged here and now to a context in which there is more room for discussion, learning and organisational change. A focus on *current resilience* must overcome a natural tendency for the agencies involved to defend their current processes and practices, explain their past record of disruption management, etc., before the conversation can move to engaging with potential for improvement, learning and change.