Critical capabilities: strengthening UK resilience – a report from the Royal Academy of Engineering

The Royal Academy of Engineers are delighted to share with you the new Academy report

‘Critical capabilities: strengthening UK resilience’.

Like others, we have been thinking over the past year about how the UK can be more prepared for and resilient to the emergencies of the future. The report makes three practical recommendations for government to work with engineers and others to build a whole-society approach to resilience, as called for in the Integrated Review.

Emergency responses draw upon a range of “critical capabilities” – the people, infrastructure and assets that need to be available and rapidly mobilised for an effective response.  In this report we argue that we need to see beyond the connections and capabilities which typically feature in disaster planning.  Drawing on lessons from four past emergencies, we explore an engineer’s systems view can help identify critical capabilities across the public, private and third sectors ahead of time, to enhance the current approach to UK planning, preparedness and emergency response.