Policy feedback: challenges, learnings and opportunities to build resilient societies

Last 28-30 January 2025, the FutuResilience project hosted three online policy roundtables on the intersection of climate crisis, social integration and digitalisation topics with resilience. We have gathered more than 70 participants along these three days, with active participation of 27 policymakers and policy advisers from the 10 FutuResilience labs and EU level. 

This series of policy roundtables aimed at engaging policymakers in an interactive discussion to share their own experiences on how they have dealt with concrete challenges (climate, integration or digital issues), what were their learnings and key challenges as well as adopted strategies for intervention (if any) or what could be done in the future. 

The discussions proved to be insightful, pointing out several aspects related to societal resilience, governance mechanisms, and the use of evidence in policymaking — topics at the core of our project. It was also an opportunity for participants and policymakers to learn and reflect on other countries' experiences with similar topics, ranging from extreme weather events and the challenges of social integration to the opportunities and risks of digitalisation in our societies. 

Climate and Resilience 

Strengthening climate resilience could help prepare societies from the increasing risks of climate-related events, such as extreme weather, rising sea levels, and disasters. By integrating sustainable practices and innovative solutions, societies can not only withstand climate shocks but also transform towards sustainable futures. Key highlights from the first roundtable include: 

• Using Science-Fiction based narratives, or dystopic scenarios could provide immersive experiences for policymakers and broader stakeholders to identify appropriate transformative measures, e.g. finding yourself in a long-lasting blackout or a tsunami in the future, and then going back to today to plan actions to prepare for adverse events. 
• Communication, especially cross-border communication, is a core issue when managing risks. There is a need for better structured communication processes and train people to keep communication processes alive when individuals in organisations change. Also data sharing is an issue, many times institutions should better coordinate, even though there are long-standing cooperation mechanisms. 
• Disasters can bring attention to the public – but this momentum is to be used as window of opportunity. Mass mobilisation of volunteers provides a learning point for managing emergencies and unlock innovation for resilience building in the short and medium term. The issue of trust becomes relevant, having the policymaker involved during emergencies is a good signal to increase trust at community level. Furthermore, there is a need to better exploit social capital, for instance, by better articulating efforts with informal organisations. They are present in the territory and could unlock more efficient management of crises. 
• Nature-Based solutions are also at the base of building urban resilience for extreme weather events. However, implementation is limited due to budget constraints or lack of skills. There is a need of better governance mechanisms and frameworks that stimulate collaboration and thus, enable resilience building processes. 

Social Integration and Resilience 

Social cohesion fosters trust, collaboration, and mutual support, and is essential for societal resilience. An inclusive society and strong social ties can strengthen adaptability, ensuring that societies function effectively and transform in response to future challenges. Key highlights from the second roundtable include: 

• Social integration requires adaptation from both sides, for instance in the topic of migration or queer communities. To increase societal resilience, policy should not only focus on the required support programmes, but also on the skills and aspirations that socially excluded bring into a locality. Social exclusion spans all over different areas of life. 
• Public partnerships with the NGO and private sectors are necessary to increase the awareness on the topic of social exclusion. Networking and as well to include persons which are affected by social exclusion into policy is a very important step towards supporting communities and social groups that are threatened by social exclusion: it can bring knowledge on the topic into societal areas, with less awareness on social exclusion and further link societal areas to make interventions towards social exclusion more effective. Labour markets could also work as social integrators. 
• It should be a stronger focus on creating spaces and provide infrastructures for connections and exchange with all people of different societal groups. There is a need to rethink public spaces where people socialise: we should analyse the policy implications of actively creating these spaces for encounters among diverse groups. 
• Education and training are a key multiplier for social integration, e.g. parents with schoolchildren create relationships to host country and hence are usually those most integrated among refugee communities. Language is seen as a key entry point for inclusion. 
• Housing policies are crucial in the domain of social integration. It is highly intertwined with other policy areas, such as urban planning, life-long education, health, and inclusion. Having a home is a key pre-requisite for social integration. Links between these policy areas are important for addressing societal resilience. 

Digitalisation and Resilience 

The digital transformation and new technologies have the capacity to enhance resilience by helping societies prepare for, withstand, and transform in the face of future disruptions. For instance, they strengthen societal functioning by supporting remote work, digital education, and smart infrastructure. We should acknowledge, however, that digitalisation could bring benefits to society but also a risk. Key highlights from the second roundtable include: 

• Digitalisation and technology are seen as enabling factors for resilience, as they could bring multiple benefits in diverse areas of application: from supporting urban planning and modernising healthcare systems to dynamising labour markets. However, we should acknowledge this comes with challenges such as the need to mitigate vulnerabilities, the way we handle data sharing, or increasing trust in new technologies. 
• Digitalisation will not improve a dysfunctional public administration system. Service delivery must be of good quality for the digitalisation of services to achieve good performance. Digitalisation should put people at the centre of transformations. The EU declaration in digital rights constitutes a good point for building just digital transitions, accounting for people’s rights. 
• Some of the significant challenges cities face include the temporal mismatch between technological development and implementation possibilities – in terms of pace and scope – and a gap in capacity and resources between ambitions and reality. The digital divide is substantial in many parts of the EU, whether we talk about digital literacy, access to technology, the means to acquire it, or its quality. 
• There is a need to foster a culture of digital literacy across all age groups, developing digital resilience standards, supporting R&D, and encouraging cooperation to facilitate learning and sharing good practices. In the field of social innovation, educating young people is key along with fostering impact: technical knowledge is necessary, but social sciences are equally important to ensure social justice. 

The policy roundtables highlighted that resilience is not just about responding to crises but about strengthening the societal fabric, ensuring functional systems, and enabling long-term transformation. These dialogues were essential to bridge knowledge gaps, align strategies, and foster adaptive policymaking that anticipates future challenges.