Research
Risk Strategies Research and Consulting offers contract research services for organisations wanting high quality, timely, and innovative research in the fields of risk and resilience management, business continuity planning and complex systems analysis.
Dr Erica Seville is actively involved in ongoing research as an Adjunct Senior Fellow of the Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at the University of Canterbury.
Resilient Organisations
Erica co-leads a major research programme “Resilient Organisations” which aims to improve the resilience of New Zealand organisations to major hazard events.
“Building more resilient organisations, able to survive and thrive in a world of uncertainty, through research and practice”
We live in an increasingly complex world dealing with a broad spectrum of crises arising from both natural and man-made causes. Resilient organisations are those that are able to survive and thrive in this world of uncertainty. Resilience integrates the concepts of Risk, Crisis Management, Business Continuity Planning and Organisational Leadership to provide a platform for developing more robust and agile organisations.
Who we are:
The Resilient Organisations Research Group (ResOrgs) is a multi-disciplinary team of 17 researchers and practitioners that is New Zealand based and with global reach. A collaboration between top New Zealand research Universities and key industry players, including the University of Canterbury and the University of Auckland, ResOrgs is funded by the NZ Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and supported by a diverse group of industry partners and advisors. The research group represents a synthesis of engineering disciplines and business leadership aimed at transforming NZ organisations into those that both survive major events and thrive in the aftermath.
We are committed to making New Zealand organisations more resilient in the face of major hazards in the natural, built and economic environments. Resilient organisations are able to rebound from disaster and find opportunity in times of distress. They are better employers, contribute to community resilience and foster a culture of self reliance and effective collaboration.
What we do:
The ResOrgs programme of public good research is aimed at effective capability building through research activities with significant impacts on policy and practice. The group, in existence since 2004, has hosted an international conference, industry and sector workshops, produced over 30 conference and journal articles and 5 industry reports. These research outputs are already influencing government policy and industry practice. Our growing reputation has already resulted in many collaborations in Australia, the US, Canada and the UK, with a number of requests for the group to participate in a wide range of international projects.
Activities and outputs of the group include informing and focusing debate in areas such as Civil Defence Emergency Management, post-disaster recovery, and the resilience of critical infrastructure sectors, in addition to core activities in relation to organisation resilience capability building and benchmarking. We have produced practical frameworks and guides and helped organisations to develop and implement practical resilience strategies suitable to their environment.
Why we do it:
In an increasingly volatile and uncertain world, one of the greatest assets an organisation can have is the agility to survive unexpected crisis and to find opportunity to thrive in the face of potentially terminal events. We believe such resilience makes the most of the human capital that characterises the modern organisation and offers one of the greatest prospects for differentiating the successful organisation on the world stage. This resilience is typified by 20/20 situation awareness, effective vulnerability management, agile adaptive capacity and world class organisational culture and leadership. More resilient organisations lead to more resilient communities and provide the honed human capital to address some of our most intractable societal challenges.
For more details see www.resorgs.org.nz.