From Silos to Systems: Insights from the Systemic Risk Conference 2025 towards a Collaborative Research Agenda

Abstract

In an interconnected world, societies are exposed to risks that transcend boundaries of sectors, regions, and hazards, triggering cascading and compounding impacts across components of the system. Risks of this nature, which can disrupt the functioning of the entire system and challenge its foundations of resilience, have been characterized as “systemic risks” (Sillmann et al., 2022). Conventional modelling, assessment, and risk governance tools are designed to address well-defined, localized, univariate and linear risks. As a result, they are insufficient and often inappropriate for capturing the dynamics and interactions that underlie systemic risks. Disciplinary silos and limited integration across domains also hinder the development of tools for systemic risk analysis, while issues of data interoperability, the selection of appropriate indicators, and a lack of feedback from practitioners further limit their usability in decision-making contexts (Sillmann et al., 2026a). A new scientific agenda and approach, one that is inter- and transdisciplinary, collaborative and co-productive, is needed to fill these gaps. The need for improvement spans establishing methodological advancements to better capture the complexity and uncertainty of systemic risks, improving the interoperability of data and models, and ensuring user engagement to enable user uptake and strengthen legitimacy.