
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.
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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:
- Shoal presents at the ‘Supply Chain Resiliency in a time of Global Uncertainty’ (Workshop), presented by Capability Systems Centre, UNSW, and sponsored by National Support Division | Joint Capabilities Group | Australian Defence Force, 2 April 2025
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- Shoal submissions accepted for Climate Smart Engineering Conference 2025 – Shoal Group, 28 April 2025
- Are we building the wrong defence industry? Strategic Analysis Australia, Dr Graeme Dunk, 20 February 2025
- Rhetoric or reality? Our security is the priority, The Australian, Dr Graeme Dunk, 31 October 2024
- There is no deterrence without a manufacturing base, Strategic Analysis Australia, Dr Graeme Dunk, 15 April 2024
- Time for a rethink of Australia’s approach to defence industry, ASPI The Strategist, Stephan Fruehling and Graeme Dunk, 18 December 2023
- Defence Industry in National Defence: Rethinking the future of Australian defence industry policy, AI Group and the Australian National University Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Graeme Dunk (contributing author), December 2023
- Defence industry is a capability, not a simple supply chain, 2 August 2023
- Shaking Australia’s ‘state vs state’ attitude to innovation, ASPI The Strategist, Graeme Dunk and James Kruger, 6 June 2023
- ‘We can get this done quickly’: Australia set to build its own missiles, The Sydney Morning Herald, Matthew Knott, 14 October 2022
- Conceptual Design for Resilience, 8 July 2022
- Developing sovereign space capability, 6 February 2022
- Designing an Australian DARPA, ASPI The Strategist, Graeme Dunk and James Kruger, 30 September 2021
- Employing a Model Based Conceptual Design Approach to Design for Resilience – Shoal Group, 21 July 2021
- Space industry capability and national resilience – Shoal Group, 10 February 2021
- Protecting critical infrastructure and systems of national significance, 20 December 2020
- Realising a national resilience framework, 14 July 2020
- Understanding decision frameworks, 15 June 2020
- Resilience – from policy to implementation, 4 June 2020
- Understanding resilience in systems, 27 May 2020
- National resilience and the Cynefin framework, 14 May 2020
- Reframing our future, 13 May 2020