Polycrisis Resource Library

The Polycrisis Resource Library is a growing collection of media that help to understand polycrisis, develop strategies to address polycrisis, and build a field of polycrisis analysis.

Our Polycrisis Demands a Radically New Approach to Risk Management

Ruth Richardson

Ruth Richardson discusses how current tools and strategies are not designed to assess the types of systemic risks that we currently face. The author calls on policymakers to drive a…

Our polycrisis demands a radically new approach to risk management

Ruth Richardson

Ruth Richardson, the Executive Director of the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment, argues that the “escalating global polycrisis demands an urgent and transformative shift in how we assess, anticipate, and…

Systemic contributions to global catastrophic risk

Constantin W. Arnscheidt, SJ Beard , Tom Hobson, Paul Ingram, Luke Kemp, Lara Mani, Alexandru Marcoci, Kennedy Mbeva, Seán S. Ó hÉigeartaigh, Anders Sandberg, Lalitha S. Sundaram and Nico Wunderling

This article examines two distinct but related approaches to the global risk landscape: one explores how risks emerge from complex global systems, while the other focuses on worst-case outcomes. The…

World Polycrisis Hangs on US Politics

Hugo Dixon

Hugo Dixon proposes that the “future of Ukraine, world trade, climate change, and relations between superpowers the United States and China depends to a great extent on whether Trump wins…

FuturePod Interview with Drs. Megan Shipman and Michael Lawrence

FuturePod

In this episode of FuturePod, host Dr. Peter Hayward speaks with Drs. Megan Shipman and Michael Lawrence of the Cascade Institute about the current global polycrisis, and their recently published…

Positive Pathways report

Michael Lawrence and Megan Shipman

This Cascade Institute report explores how to translate an understanding of polycrises into actionable strategies to alleviate them. It suggests ways in which polycrisis analysis can build on existing approaches…

Causal Loop Diagrams handbook

Michael Lawrence

In this handbook, Cascade Institute Polycrisis Fellow Michael Lawrence explains how to read and draw a causal loop diagrams (CLD)–a systems mapping technique that helps us to think through our…

Introduction: Escaping the Politics Trap? EU Integration Pathways Beyond the Polycrisis

Francesco Nicoli and Jonathan Zeitlin

The authors argue that since 2016, the European Union (EU) has been in a state of ‘polycrisis,’ where interconnected challenges threaten its cohesion and legitimacy. They develop an analytical framework…

Transformative Resilience: The Key to Governing Europe’s Sustainability Transitions in the Polycrisis

European Environment Agency

This report explores transformative resilience in the EU’s sustainability transitions within the polycrisis context. Using a conceptual framework of transformative resilience, it addresses the following questions: How can the EU…

The Disruption Nexus

Roman Krznaric

Roman Krznaric explores the conditions in which crises lead to transformative societal change. He finds that transformative responses are most common in conditions of war, disaster, revolution, and disruption. The…

About the Resource Library

The Polycrisis Resource Library includes resources that:

  • Comment on the polycrisis as a concept and as a present global reality
  • Undertake similar analysis using different—but related—concepts
  • Analyze crisis interactions among multiple global systems

Though not exhaustive, the Library strives to present a diverse representation of views on different aspects of the polycrisis discussion, and will be updated as that discussion evolves. Search for resources with the keyword search bar, or by using the drop-down menus to filter for type of resource, global systems addressed, and key themes.

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