The strengths of future thinking for building societal resilience

Societal resilience refers to the ability of communities, institutions and systems to absorb shocks, recover quickly, and adapt to new or unforeseen challenges. The concept has gained traction in the face of the increased complexity of interrelated challenges and the impacts that different crises create —whether they are disasters, economic downturns, migration waves, public health emergencies, or cyberthreats. Societies needs to increasingly develop the capacity to anticipate and prepare by creating strategies and concrete policy actions to withstand shocks, be flexible and adapt to evolve to new and emerging threats. 

There is a tendency to look at resilience as part of specific policy domains, often working ‘in silos’ and failing to address the overall policy process. Policymakers are increasingly faced with complex and comprehensive challenges, asked to make decision best made informed with the input of the scientific community and society at large. 

Reinforcing the ‘societal fabric’ 

Societal resilience thus requires the strengthening of the societal fabric—everything from daily routines like going to work or school to maintaining essential services like healthcare and businesses. This resilience must be flexible and dynamic, allowing societies to navigate complex and pressing challenges while retaining enough capacity to maneuver through uncertainty. Societal resilience is built on a series of guiding factors: strong social cohesion, flexible governance, adaptive infrastructure, and robust economic systems. 

Social cohesion ensures that communities remain united and supportive, which is crucial for collective action during crises. Flexible governance allows for rapid policy adjustments and inclusive decision-making that address the needs of all citizens. Adaptive infrastructure—whether physical, digital, or institutional—enables quick recovery and continued functionality under stress. Finally, robust economic systems provide the financial stability and resources needed to cushion the impacts of crises and support long-term recovery. 

The FUTURESILIENCE project adapted these four key factors into broader categories widely use in the policymaking process for the purpose of connecting resilience-building with the efforts to achieve sustainable development goals. The categories of planet, prosperity, people and governance encompass sub-domains including, but not limited to, finance, business, education, digitalisation, energy and materials, housing, agriculture and food and health. These areas become affected when a crises unfolds and they constitute policy sectors on which policymakers and societies must focus in order to strengthen the societal fabric in a flexible and adaptive way, thus building societal resilience. 

Some examples from previous crises helped us capture the role of strengthening the societal fabric in concrete areas: 

• Local business: during the 2008 financial crisis, some companies such quickly adapted their business models—such as shifting from physical to digital platforms – showing their ability to pivot business strategies and adapting to new circumstances. 
• Digitalisation: in the face of growing cybersecurity threats, companies and governments are adopting flexible cybersecurity frameworks. This includes real-time monitoring and adaptive defense mechanisms that evolve with emerging threats such as AI-driven cyberattacks. 
• Education: The COVID-19 pandemic forced a rapid adaptation of education systems worldwide. Schools and universities that quickly transitioned to online learning platforms were able to maintain continuity in education, while those that couldn’t adapt faced significant disruptions. 

From scenario planning to policy design 

Anticipatory governance plays a crucial role in building societal resilience by emphasizing the need to govern in uncertain contexts with a forward-looking approach. This governance model is not just about managing current risks but also about preparing for future, unknown challenges. It requires a deep understanding of local risks, vulnerabilities, and strengths, and calls for the active engagement of all stakeholders in the planning and decision-making process. 

Scenario planning could offer a structured approach for communities to envision multiple plaussible futures and design policies that remain effective regardless of which scenario unfolds. This proactive approach helps communities prepare for uncertainties and ensures that policies are versatile enough to handle a range of possible circumstances. 

Scenario planning involves creating detailed and plausible narratives about how the future might unfold based on various uncertainties and trends. For instance, a city might develop scenarios considering the impacts of climate change, economic shifts, and technological advancements. These scenarios could include futures where there is flooding due to heavy rain sitautions, where the local economy experiences a boom due to technological innovation, or where there is a severe economic crisis. 

By exploring these diverse scenarios, policymakers and and societal actors can identify key variables and risks associated with each possible future. This exercise not only highlights potential challenges but also reveals opportunities for strategic intervention. Once scenarios are prepared, the next step is to design policies that are capable of navigating various potential futures. For example, consider a scenario planning exercise for a city facing the dual challenges of rapid urbanization and climate change. In one scenario, the city experiences an influx of residents due to a booming tech industry, while in another, it faces severe flooding due to increased heavy rains seasons. 

In response, policymakers might design a flexible policy that can deal with increased density while incorporating flood mitigation measures. This policy could include adjustable building codes that allow for rapid updates in response to new environmental data, incentives for green infrastructure, community guidelines to act upon changing weather situations, or business actions to keep operating under pressing circumstances. By embedding flexibility into the policy framework, the city can more effectively adapt to changing conditions without requiring a complete overhaul of its approach. 

The primary benefit of this approach lies in its ability to build societal resilience. By preparing for a range of scenarios, communities can avoid being overly reliant on any single outcome and are better equipped to handle unexpected shifts. In this direction, the ten FUTURESILIENCE labs aim to demonstrate how foresight and other policy testing approaches (e.g. speculative design, use of science fictions narratives, developing forecasting tools, etc.) can guide policy-making and strategic planning, allowing for proactive rather than reactive responses to societal issues.

*Prepared by Matias Barberis (EFIS Centre) with contributions from Evangelia Petridou (NTNU Social Research)