The Systemic Futures Lab develops and contributes to projects that turn research on resilience, systemic risk, cascading disruption, and high-impact low-probability events into practical methods, tools, training, and stakeholder-facing outputs.
Our projects provide the applied setting for testing concepts, working with practitioners, developing stress-testing approaches, and supporting organisations preparing for known risks, emerging threats, and uncertain futures.
AGILE (AGnostic risk management for high-Impact Low-probability Events)
Project website: https://www.project-agile.eu/
AGILE develops frameworks and practical tools to understand, assess, manage, and communicate high-impact low-probability events from a systemic risk and resilience perspective.
The project is closely aligned with the Lab’s focus on preparing organisations for the known, the unknown, and the conditions that allow disruption to become systemic. The Systemic Futures Lab contributes to HILP conceptualisation, systemic risk analysis, scenario development, and resilience stress-testing approaches.
Funder: Horizon Europe Civil Security for Society, with UKRI support for UK participation.
Consortium: Transdisciplinary consortium of 15 international partners involving research organisations, NGOs, SMEs, first responders, and local and regional authorities.
Budget: €4.56 million, plus UK contribution
Years active: 2023–2027.
Recognition: UCL AGILE Project received the CIR Magazine Business Continuity Award for Best Contribution to Continuity & Resilience in 2026, and evidence from the project was Council of the European Union’s Working Party on Civil Protection (PROCIV).
CLOSER CLosing thE loop: attRribution of complex climate disasters
Website: forthcoming
CLOSER focuses on complex climate-related disasters, including extreme and slow-onset events. The project advances attribution and forecasting while addressing how climatic and non-climatic drivers interact across systems.
The Systemic Futures Lab contributes a systemic and organisational perspective on how climate-related disruption may cascade across sectors, infrastructures, services, and decision-making systems.
Funder: Horizon Europe Climate, Energy and Mobility.
Consortium: Coordinated by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with a European and international consortium of research and stakeholder-facing partners.
Budget: €5.95 million EU contribution.
Years active: 2026–2030.
CIRCLE (Community and Infrastructure Resilience to Climate-geological Long-term Effects)
Website:https://uwo.ca/multihazard_risk_resilience/CIRCLE_project
CIRCLE examines community and infrastructure resilience to climate-geological long-term effects, with a focus on cascading multi-hazard scenarios, interdependent infrastructure networks, and preparedness-recovery planning.
The Systemic Futures Lab contributes to work on cascading effects, systemic vulnerability, interdependencies, and resilience planning.
Funder: New Frontiers in Research Fund – International (NFRFI-2023-00548)
Consortium: International research collaboration working with coastal communities and partners in Canada, Cuba, and Indonesia.
Budget: 1.5M USD
Years active: 2024–2027.
EO4MULTIHAZARDS (High-Impact Multi-Hazards Science)
Website:https://eo4multihazards.gmv.com/
EO4MULTIHAZARDS uses satellite Earth Observation to improve understanding of high-impact cascading and compounding multi-hazard events, including their drivers, dynamics, exposure, vulnerability, and societal impacts.
The Systemic Futures Lab contributes by linking technical insight with organisational preparedness, operational continuity, stakeholder engagement, and practical use.
Funder: European Space Agency.
Consortium: Led by GMV Aerospace and Defence, with partners including British Geological Survey, CMCC, Eurac Research, UCL, University of Twente, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Budget: To be added.
Years active: 2023–2025.
Systemic Futures Lab 