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
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 ...
Complexity-Congruent Research: Methods and Methodology. In: Global Crises
This chapter examines ‘restricted complexity’ research approaches and their effectiveness in addressing global polycrisis. It explores the potential of ‘complexity-congruent’ designs, which incorporate key traits such as temporal dynamics, multi-level scaling, and participatory methods. The ...
Unraveling the Polycrisis with Foresight and Innovation
This publication introduces the EU Policy Lab's new Polycrisis Exploration Tool, an adaptable tool for foresight and holistic risk management. Grounded in Wendy Schultz’s Manoa methodology, it uses a participatory and structured approach to explore ...
A Logic For The Future
Stephen Heintz and Kim Stanley Robinson explore the concept of the polycrisis and the urgent need for comprehensive reform of global governance. In an era marked by interconnected political, economic, technological, and environmental challenges that ...
The Social Pathology of Polycrisis
Stephen J. Purdey explores how the polycrisis has emerged as a growing threat despite humanity’s shared desire for safety and prosperity. He argues that its material dimensions are rooted in and legitimized by an underlying ...
The Routledge Handbook on Crisis, Polycrisis, and Public Administration
This volume explores the challenges faced by the public sector in responding to local, national, and global crises, particularly in the context of polycrisis. Drawing on expertise from various fields, it addresses the complexities of ...
NEW TO POLYCRISIS.ORG
The Routledge Handbook on Crisis, Polycrisis, and Public Administration
This volume explores the challenges faced by the public sector in responding to local, national, and global crises, particularly in the context of polycrisis. Drawing on expertise from various fields, it addresses the complexities of ...
Examining the Effective Role of Artificial Intelligence in the Interconnected Crisis of Climate Change and Human Migration
The authors examine the link between climate change and migration, using data mining to identify key environmental and socioeconomic drivers. Findings show that water scarcity and prolonged droughts are major factors behind displacement, with predictive ...
Exploring Food System Resilience to the Global Polycrisis in Six Asian Countries
The authors explore the resilience of food systems in six Asian countries (Bangladesh, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Pakistan, Philippines, and Sri Lanka) amidst the global polycrisis caused by COVID-19, geopolitical conflicts, and climate change. Using ...
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.