Each session comprises a 30-minute talk by leading experts on an aspect of their research within the area of disaster resilience, followed by 30-minutes of discussion and question and answer. Through this series, we will engage in multidisciplinary discussion regarding fostering disaster resilience in a range of settings affected by hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunami, flooding, and wildfires. https://ucl.zoom.us/j/95720118073

This month's talk is being delivered by Professor Mark Pelling

Speaker bio: Mark Pelling is Professor of Geography, King’s College London. He researches on the social and institutional aspects of resilience and disaster risk reduction, predominantly in collaboration with colleagues in the global South and often in an urban context. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC 5th and 6th Assessment Reports helping lead a chapter on Cities, Settlements and Key Infrastructure. He is co-director of the GCRF-UKRI Tomorrow’s Cities Hub, a £20m, 5 year programme of work seeking to support urban stakeholders in bringing multi-hazard risk reduction into urban development decision processes. Between 2019 and 2021 he was seconded to the GCRF as a Challenge Lead in Resilience and Climate Change.

Abstract - Resilience: research on a dynamic object.

Resilience is well recognised as a contested concept – what object it is attributed to, what users seek it to do and how it feels to be more or less resilient, all differ by viewpoint. This seminar draws together three different research projects to offer some thoughts on how the fluid qualities of resilience can be drawn out and perhaps made useful. First, the use of scenario exercises to imagine the future relationship between development and risk/resilience trajectories with examples from richer and poorer country contexts. Second, the importance of placing the powerless at the centre of research to reveal hidden pathways to risk and resilience. Third, the emerging consequences for COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in highlighting the cascading and compounding sites of risk and resilience.