Multiple global crises are worsening one another to produce what many policymakers, scholars, and commentators call a “polycrisis.” This website is a hub that helps this emerging community better understand and address the intersecting crises affecting humanity.
LATEST RESOURCES
Polycrisis and Systemic Risk: Assessment, Governance, and Communication
In this article Huan Liu and Ortwin Renn examine the concepts of polycrisis and systemic risk. They outline key commonalities and differences and develop a joint understanding to inform risk assessment, governance, and communication. The ...
Critical Responses to Global Systemic Risk in an Era of Polycrisis
In this paper, Ruth Richardson argues that the global polycrisis demands a transformative shift in how systemic risks are assessed and addressed. Traditional, siloed approaches to risk management are no longer sufficient to confront the ...
Polycrisis in the Anthropocene – A Global Sustainability Webinar
One year after the call for papers for the Polycrisis in the Anthropocene special issue, 13 articles have been published, with more contributions forthcoming. This webinar features five authors from the first set of papers ...
Public Administration in an Age of Polycrises: Multi-nodal Governance Approaches in Some South East Asian Countries
In this chapter, the authors explore how public administration can effectively respond to the contemporary polycrisis. Using a multi-nodal governance framework, the chapter examines how selected Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand ...
Artificial Intelligence in the Polycrisis: Fueling or Fighting Flames?
The authors explore how artificial intelligence is increasingly entangled with the polycrisis. Using the Anthropocene Traps framework, they examine 14 self-reinforcing structural dynamics to reveal how artificial intelligence can both exacerbate and help address these ...
Interconnected Disaster Risks: Turning Over a New Leaf
The 2025 Interconnected Disaster Risks report, Turning Over a New Leaf, calls for transformative societal changes to address escalating global crises. It outlines five essential shifts: rethinking waste, realigning with nature, reconsidering responsibility, reimagining the ...
Collapse: What It Is — And What To Do
In this episode, Sarah Wilson delves into the concept of societal collapse, exploring its roots and possible responses. She weaves together Western and Indigenous perspectives, discussing theories such as Moloch theory, the influence of the ...
Planet in Polycrisis
In this episode, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Executive Director of the Cascade Institute, and Manjana Milkoreit, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo, explore the growing risks of global polycrisis. Through the lens of complexity science, Homer-Dixon ...
Polycrisis and the Thucydides Trap. In: War and the World Economy
In this chapter, William Jefferies examines polycrisis as a framework for understanding the interconnected and compounding challenges facing the contemporary world—including environmental degradation, economic inequality, geopolitical tensions, and democratic backsliding. Situating these developments in the ...
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Extinction of the human species: What could cause it and how likely is it to occur?
The author explores the growing body of scientific and scholarly work on human extinction and existential risks, focusing on the question: “What could kill everyone, and how likely is it to happen?” This review provides ...
Managing and Mitigating Future Public Health Risks: Planetary Boundaries, Global Catastrophic Risk, and Inclusive Wealth
The authors argue for a more integrated framework to understand existential risks by bridging two dominant paradigms: Planetary Boundaries and Global Catastrophic Risks. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, the authors analyze how ...
Framework on Management of Emerging Critical Risks
This report presents a seven-step framework to help governments manage emerging critical risks in an increasingly interconnected global landscape, shaped by complex economic, social, and technological systems. It outlines processes for risk identification, assessment, information-sharing, ...
Try our guided tour of essential themes in the polycrisis discussion and key texts in the Polycrisis Resource Library.
This map charts the emerging community of scholars and practitioners working on polycrisis and closely related topics.