National Resilience

A Shoal Group Report: Australia and a plan for national resilience

In the national context, resilience is the ability of our nation to withstand, respond to, and recover from shocks; be they economic, cyber, natural disasters, social cohesion, physical attacks, or threats to the democratic process. This ability is dependent on an intertwined relationship of systems, like healthcare, transport, government, communications, defence, space, infrastructure … a system of systems. The function and behaviour of each of these systems – which are often referred to as industries – is not constrained or independent. Sometimes, a relationship is symbiotic, whereby a change in one industry positively affects another. And sometimes, the impact is just the opposite.

Resilience, derived from the Latin verb ‘resilire’, meaning ‘to recoil’, has become the topic du jour in Australia and around the world. It refers to the ability of a system to recover from misfortune or change.

The concept of national resilience recognises these ‘interrelationships’, with an approach that creates a framework to understand them and provide the structure for planning and decision making.

More resilient and less reliant

Many countries have a national resilience plan or a framework, built into their national security planning – think Sweden, Finland, the Baltic States, Singapore, and the UK. In Shoal Group’s report – The importance and development of national resilience – we examine Australia’s national resilience, providing a foundation for developing a framework.

Download the report:
The importance and development of national resilience - a Shoal Group discussion paper

This report has been researched and written by Dr Graeme Dunk, Head of Strategy at Shoal Group. The development of this report has led to advising Federal Government and industry, as well as consulting with independent think tanks, universities and research institutions.

Resilience in action

As systems thinkers, we’ve been exploring resilience for many years – using modelling, simulation, and analysis to ask ‘what if’, and applying complex systems design to define the ‘how’. From real world applications to forward-thinking insights, here’s how we’ve approached complexity to build, design for or consider resilience:

Practical steps toward economic transformation for greater resiliency - presentation Practical steps toward economic transformation for greater resiliency - speech