CSEI Seminar Series - Organizing for Resilience of Communities

CSEI Seminar Series - Organizing for Resilience of Communities

Dr Nader Naderpajouh – The University of Sydney

On Tuesday 12 October 2021 the Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation had the pleasure of hosting Dr Nader Naderpajouh, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney where he is also Director of Research Education and leader of the Organising for Resilience in the Built Environment research group (ORIBE).  Dr Naderpajouh delivered an online seminar on ‘Organizing for Resilience of Communities and their Infrastructure Systems’. The seminar was very well attended – we were pleased to welcome nearly 60 delegates.

Dr Naderpajouh started by observing how there is a growing concern over the frequent observation of shocks and stressors such as social unrests, political instabilities, climate crisis, or the more recent example of a global pandemic. In response, researchers and practitioners are increasingly interested in the topic of resilience to understand the ability of ecological, social, and technical systems to function despite predictable and unknown changes. In this context, organizing for resilience is defined as the actions to plan, absorb, recover or adapt to the variations in the performance of the systems under different conditions. During the seminar, Dr Naderpajouh explored these actions at the nexus of communities and their infrastructure systems. The discussion started from an example of research on how communities interact with infrastructure development, and then continued on how they govern, maintain, or even drive and shape their infrastructure systems. To instigate further discussions, a multi-level conceptual framework for the concept of resilience was presented.

The talk was followed by a lively Q&A which touched upon:

• The social perspective on engineering.
• How to collect and validate data.
• Participatory decision-making.
• The role of governance in the context of climate change and carbon reduction.

To close the seminar, Dr Naderpajouh warned that there are compromises to be made in order to achieve resilient infrastructure systems.

You can watch a recording of the event here - VIDEO LINK .

For more information about the Centre and to get involved click here or email Dr Jeni Giambona, j.giambona@imperial.ac.uk.