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
A Systemic Risk Assessment Methodological Framework for the Global Polycrisis
The paper examines two historical global food–energy crises, highlighting the limitations of traditional risk management approaches in addressing today’s complex and interconnected global risks. The authors propose a methodological framework for assessing systemic risks in ...
New Challenge for Risk Governance: Polycrisis and Systemic Risk
The author highlights the rise of polycrises, where interconnected challenges, such as the pandemic, climate change, wars, food insecurity, and inflation, mutually amplify one another. He argues that the traditional approach to risk assessment and ...
Dimensional characterization and Pathway Modeling for Catastrophic AI Risks
This paper examines catastrophic AI risks using a framework that combines seven risk dimensions: intent, competency, entity, polarity, linearity, reach, and order, along with risk pathway modelling to link hazards to harms. It analyzes six ...
Echoes of Uncertainty: Reimagining Complexity of Global Risks in the Shadow of the Russian–Ukrainian Conflict
The authors explore risk perceptions in Ukraine and Poland in the context of the ongoing Russian–Ukrainian conflict. Drawing on cross-sectional survey data, the research reveals significant differences in how respondents from both countries perceive a ...
Towards a Theory of Coupled Sociopolitical Events-Planetary Boundaries, Crises, Policrisis and Earth System Syndromes
This paper introduces a novel modelling framework to evaluate how specific sociopolitical events influence the Earth System and their interaction with Planetary Boundaries. The authors present an interacting matrix model that links sociopolitical dynamics with ...
Global Food Security in a Turbulent World: Reviewing the Impacts of the Pandemic, the War and Climate Change
The authors explore how the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia–Ukraine war, and climate change have jointly disrupted global food security. Drawing on recent empirical evidence, the paper examines the mechanisms through which each shock has affected ...
The State of Global Catastrophic Risk Research: A Bibliometric Review
This paper presents a systematic bibliometric analysis of the expanding literature on global catastrophic risk (GCR) and existential risk (ER). Based on 3,437 documents, the authors identify ten major research clusters, including key drivers such ...
Cascading Failure, Financial Network and Systemic Risk
This paper addresses the challenge of accurately measuring systemic risk by introducing a novel indicator, Expected Shortfall Rank (ESRank), which accounts for cascading failures and network effects often overlooked in traditional models. Using LASSO to ...
The History of Bad Ideas: Polycrisis
In this podcast, David Runciman talks to historian Gary Gerstle about how the idea of the polycrisis was originally conceived, what its current popularity reveals about our times, and whether we are truly experiencing a ...
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Dynamics of the Polycrisis: Temporal Trends, Spatial Distribution, and Co-occurrences of National Shocks (1970–2019)
The authors investigate the evolving nature of global crises by analyzing the temporal trends, geographic distribution, and co-occurrences of shocks across 175 countries from 1970 to 2019. Their findings reveal that shocks have become increasingly ...
Re-imagining Earth System Governance in an Era of Polycrisis
The 2024 Forum on 'Re-Imagining Earth System Governance in an Era of Polycrisis' convened academics, researchers, practicioners and government representatives exchanging critical insights on earth system governance in an era of polycrisis. Hosted by the ...
A World of Debt – Report 2025
This report highlights the surge in global public debt, aggravated by a series of cascading crises in recent years. It also underscores how the growing debt burden disproportionately impacts developing countries, where public resources are ...
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.