Symposium Agenda
The program integrates inspiring speakers and conversations with hands-on working sessions, and space to discover new possibilities at the intersection of crisis and opportunity.
Download the preliminary program to view the schedule. We'll share updates as new speakers and sessions are confirmed.
Continue reading below for detailed descriptions of our interactive breakout sessions.
Breakout Sessions | Sunday, 8 June
These interactive sessions will provide participants with the opportunity to deep-dive into specific risk domains and work together to translate insights into action. A central component of the symposium’s agenda, participants will be asked to opt-into their preferred session in advance (a sign-up form will be sent in early May 2025). While the session topics listed below are confirmed, please note that the content and descriptions remain draft and may be adjusted. Facilitator details will be announced soon.
1 | Rethinking Systemic Risk Assessment
ASRA has developed a specific systemic risk assessment (SRA) framework to address this challenge. This session will explore ASRA's SRA framework, examining how it builds upon existing risk management approaches while incorporating critical lessons from current and historical systemic crises. Participants will gain first-hand insight into the framework's practical application in a mix of socio-economic and political contexts to date and explore its new web-based version. Through interactive discussion, participants will discuss how different stakeholders can implement this framework to address their unique systemic risk assessment needs.
2 | Rethinking Systemic Risk Response
ASRA has developed systemic risk response (SRR) criteria as a tool to address this challenge. This session will explore ASRA's SRR tool through insights from diverse pilot projects, ranging from international policy development to grassroots activism. Participants will gain first-hand insight into the tool's practical applications and supporting case studies, and trial the web-based tool. Through interactive discussion, participants will explore how different stakeholders can apply these criteria to strengthen their systemic risk responses at multiple scales and in varying contexts.
3 | Acting in the Face of Uncertainty
This session will explore approaches to integrate uncertainty into systemic risk assessment and response while still developing contextually appropriate and participatory responses. With the help of analyses of current and historical examples, participants will gain insights into critical instances where risk assessments failed to anticipate “Black Swans” and other "unknown unknowns," and consider where adaptive and flexible approaches have led to better outcomes, even in spite of imperfect knowledge. Participants will be encouraged to share their experiences and contribute to building a fuller picture of how to handle deep uncertainty across different contexts.
4 | Understanding the Transformative Potential of Diverse Knowledge
While traditional risk management often relies heavily on siloed data and specialized professional knowledge, this session explores the transformative potential of integrating diverse knowledge sources—from Indigenous wisdom to lived experience to warm data—while making explicit the values and assumptions that shape our understanding of systemic risk. Through real-world examples, participants will explore how different knowledge types can be co-created and integrated into assessment and response, playing a fundamental role in systems change and response outcomes.
5 | Imagining Futures
This session explores the diversity of methods to imagine and explore a range of futures, including foresight approaches that can drive transformative change across interconnected systems. Through practical examples from multilateral to local levels, participants will learn when and how to work with scenarios, roadmaps, and other methods to build better visions of the future to navigate systemic risk. Participants will gain insights into the role of anticipatory governance and understand how different foresight tools can be effectively applied across various contexts to ensure just and equitable transitions.
6 | Channeling Finance for Systems Change.
Drawing on lessons from COVID-19, the 2007-9 Financial Crisis, and other crises, this session deep-dives into why this is happening and what can be done about it. Through exploratory discussion, participants will be encouraged to imagine innovative, novel, and scalable mechanisms to motivate and mobilize funding and to identify opportunities to better join up the landscape of funding for interconnected, global challenges. Through exploratory discussion, participants will investigate barriers to raising requisite funding for different global challenges and, where possible, highlight successful cases in which such barriers were overcome.
7 | Seizing Policy Windows for Systemic Impact
As global risks intensify and interact across the world, policy- and decision-makers face not just mounting fiscal and financial constraints but also cognitive overload which means they often default to crisis response modes that impede transformative action. Yet windows of opportunity for bolder, more experimental approaches continue to emerge through multilateral processes, election cycles, and strategic break points. This session aims to identify forthcoming policy opportunities and the practical and near-term strategies to influence them, drawing from real-world examples.
8 | Rethinking Risk to Recognize the Sanctity of the More-than-Human
This session challenges the anthropocentric framing that dominates today’s polycrisis discourse by exploring how "nature-centric" thinking can transform risk assessment and response. Participants will examine ways to reflect the deep interconnectedness of human and non-human systems and nature's inherent worth beyond human utility in systemic risk management. Drawing from practical examples, participants will explore how this perspective can be operationalized in existing processes, strategies, and practices and what the implications are for decision-making across different scales and geographies.
9 | Placing Human Rights, Justice, and Equity at the Heart of Systemic Risk
This session explores concepts and approaches for embedding the values of human rights, justice, and the expertise of vulnerable communities into systemic risk management. Through discussing key concepts such as structural, distributive equity and restorative justice, participants will explore practical applications and barriers to justice-centered approaches. Participants will be encouraged to consider what opportunities exist to further this work and reflect on how these principles could transform systemic risk thinking and practice.
10 | Leveraging the Dynamics of Narrative Change
This session explores the crowded landscape of narratives surrounding systemic risk, analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, and connections. Participants will workshop this narrative terrain to uncover strategic openings for resonant storytelling and messaging frameworks. Together, we will reflect on how these narratives connect, their respective strengths and weaknesses, and where strategic openings exist for participants to amplify their impact.
11 | Mainstreaming Systemic Risk from Global to Local
This session will explore opportunities to embed systemic risk understanding and action in public and private sector planning and governance, as well as to civil society and community-level decision-making. Participants will examine barriers and incentives to mainstreaming, and identify potential first movers. Through collaborative dialogue, the session will explore strategies to scale systemic risk practices effectively and equitably and consider the pace at which this needs to happen in order to address the urgency of today’s interconnected crises.
12 | Understanding the Polycrisis
This session will explore the interconnected crises that characterize our era, examining their drivers, context, and the scale of responses required. Participants will discuss the term “polycrisis,” its strengths and limitations as a concept, and through open and imaginative dialogue, the session will delve into the historical and systemic drivers of this polycrisis and explore ambitious and systemic solutions informed by its unique context. This deeper understanding will inform discussions on the scale, ambition, and types of responses needed to address this unprecedented challenge.
Breakout Sessions | Monday, 9 June
More details coming soon…
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