Crises In The Making

Crises In The Making
Webinar

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Background: The third introductory webclave to the forthcoming Cityforum ‘Reimagining Security and Resilience’ programme is scheduled for late-July 2023. 'Crises in the making' will look at looming crises, those both known and unknown to us, which pose serious threats to global security. Our panel will discuss ways officials can identify these threats as well as ways to best manage the risk.

Chaired by Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli of Z/Yen with whom Cityforum is working on this series, the excellent panel of discussants comprises Professor Sir David Omand, former UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator; Dr Carina Fearnley, Associate Professor & Director at the Early Warning Centre, University College London, and Stephen Hawker, former senior member intelligence & security community and Cityforum Associate.

The whole thrust of this Cityforum project, which extends until Christmas, is how to deliver improved security and resilient recovery in a period of global stress, fragmentation and polycrisis.

Speakers:

Sir David Omand GCB is a Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and at PSIA Sciences Po in Paris. His government service included UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator in the Cabinet Office, Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, Director of GCHQ, Deputy Under-Secretary of State for Policy in the MOD and Principal Private Secretary of the Secretary of State for Defence. He is a senior adviser to Paladin Capital, investing in growing cyber security companies and has been the Senior Independent Director of Babcock International Group plc. He is the author of Securing the State (Hurst) 2010; (with Professor Mark Phythian) Principled Spying: The Ethics of Secret Intelligence (OUP, 2018); and How Spies Think: 10 Lessons in Intelligence (Penguin Viking 2020). His new book ‘How to Survive a Crisis – Lessons in Resilience and Avoiding Disaster’ was published by Penguin Viking on 1st June 2023.

Dr Carina Fearnley is Director of the UCL Warning Research Centre, and UCL Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies at the UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies, and an Honorary Research Associate at the UCL Hazard Centre. Carina is an interdisciplinary researcher, drawing on relevant expertise in the social sciences on scientific uncertainty, risk, and complexity to focus on how natural hazard early warning systems can be made more effective, specifically alert level systems. She also has interest in the transdisciplinary potential of art and science collaborations around environmental hazards. Carina established the UCL Warning Research Centre, the worlds only dedicated centre to researching and practicing warnings for all hazards and threats in 2020, the World Organisation of Volcano Observatories Volcano Alert Level Working Group, and edited the first publication dedicated to Volcanic Crisis Communication (Observing the Volcano World: Volcanic Crisis Communication). Carina studied Geology and Mining at Imperial College London prior to working in London City’s financial sector. She completed her PhD at the UCL Hazard Research Centre before lecturing at Aberystwyth University. Carina is a regular consultant for Bournemouth University Disaster Management Centre, and frequently appears on national and international media following significant hazard events.

Stephen Hawker is a former senior member of the UK intelligence and security community. Since 2006 he has worked as an independent consultant providing insight to government and the commercial sector in the UK and overseas on national security and intelligence issues. He has also served as a member of the Advisory Board of BAE Systems Applied Intelligence. He is a member of the Security Vetting Appeals Panel (SVAP) and the Advisory Council on National Records and Archives (ACNRA). Stephen has undertaken significant assignments at board level in the public and private sectors including Capability Reviews of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), benchmarking reviews of overseas security and intelligence services and other capacity building and training in Africa and the Middle East. In 2011 he undertook an independent international review of security clearance arrangements for the government of New Zealand. Stephen has been a Non-Executive Director of FCO Services, Chairman of Critical-Link Ltd and an independent member of the FCO Consular Management Board. He was specialist adviser to the House of Lords sub-committee reviewing the EU’s Internal Security Strategy in 2011 and one of the ‘Critical Friends’ advising the Home Office on security arrangements for the 2012 London Olympics. Stephen serves as Senior Associate of Cityforum and offers guidance across a wide range of its activities.

Date
Wednesday, 26 July 2023

Time
15:00 - 16:00 BST

Cost
Free