ABOUT PROJECT

Challenges

Modern critical infrastructures are becoming increasingly “smarter” (e.g. cities) in normal operation and use: more adaptive, more intelligent…

But:

• Will these smart critical infrastructures (SCIs) be “smartly resilient” when exposed to extreme threats, such as extreme weather disasters or terrorist attacks?
• If making existing infrastructure “smarter” is achieved by making it more complex, would it also make it more vulnerable?
• How is the resilience of an SCI (e.g. as its ability to anticipate, prepare for, adapt and withstand, respond to, and recover) affected when exposed to extreme threats

These are the main questions tackled by SmartResilience.

Objectives

The society needs a system of resilience management going beyond conventional risk management, in order to address the complexities of large integrated systems and the uncertainty of future threats. In modern society the systems that determine resilience of the society are the critical infrastructures (energy grids, transportation, government, water, etc.)

SmartResilience aims to provide an innovative “holistic” methodology for assessing resitience that is based on resilience indicators. SmartResilience specific objectives are:

• to identify existing indicators suitable for assessing resilience of SCIs
• to identify new “smart” resilience indicators (RIs) – including those from Big Data
• to develop advanced resilience assessment methodology and tools
• to test and validate the methodology/tools in 8 case studies, integrated under one virtual, smart‐city‐like, European case study dealing with energy, transportation, health, water infrastructures in smart cities, tackling also cascading effects.

Expected Impacts

SmartResilience will significantly improve the resilience of SCIs by providing a uniform and comprehensive methodology of risk and resilient assessment. This assessment will lead to proactive innovations that eventually will raise the level of resilience at those SCIs.  
However, the project will achieve a number of other impacts related to:

• Fostering new product developing and solutions, generating new insights for SCI and their interdependencies
• Providing novel tools and insights for rapid response planning, improved business continuity and organizational adjustments to become more resilient
• Enhancing resilience of the population based on concepts of increased awareness, preparedness, appropriate behavior during disasters.

Who will benefit from this work?

• Researchers and professionals, both from industry and academic world,
• Operators of (smart) CIs who offer their services based on (more) resilient structures,
• Industry and SMEs who offer products or services to the SCI operators that increase their resilience, or solve issues of interdependencies and cascading effects,
• Public sector and community citizens, for better preparedness, information enhancement and awareness.