The inaugural Lecture on the 25th of October by Prof. Dr. Tina Comes covers the topic of ‘‘A Resilience Agenda for the New Normal”.

Prof. Dr. Tina Comes points out that decision-makers need to rapidly react to a growing number of crises to ensure the resilience and sustainable growth of our society. Combined with the proliferation and volatility of data and the digitalization and interconnectedness of our societies, this implies that decision-makers need to make increasingly uncertain and far-reaching decisions at an accelerating pace. The most prominent example of this paradigm shift is the COVID19 pandemic. Decisions on lockdowns, bailouts, or new infrastructure for vaccine distribution were made and implemented at an unprecedented pace. “Never waste a good crisis” has become a leitmotif of the many calls for transformative change following the disruption. In transition management and resilience theory, disruptions are indeed described as important enablers of change. However, a new study published in Nature shows that disasters do not lead to policy change. If we want to manage the coming transitions towards resilient uncertainty, we need to urgently understand why.

In this inaugural lecture, Prof. Dr. Tina Comes unpacks some of the most common myths and assumptions about urgent decisions and the role of digital technologies to support them.

Furthermore, she presents examples from her previous and ongoing work, ranging from Haiyan in the Philippines to rethinking our cities in the Netherlands to develop the resilience research agenda.