A systemic risk response is any action that mitigates, prepares for, adapts to, and transforms away from harm. Responding to risk is iterative, not theoretical. Progress often means finding compromises, navigating trade-offs, trial and error, experiencing and learning from failure, and adjusting course as new risks or power dynamics emerge.
In 2024, ASRA’s Systemic Risk Response (SRR) Working Group translated our Principles into 14 practical criteria – creating an actionable framework to assess whether interventions can be considered as truly systemic. The SRR Criteria were tested and applied to a range of different responses in different contexts and geographies in pilots and subsequently refined. The criteria are meant to be used together, not à la carte, so interventions address systemic risks that compound and cascade within and across systems.
Typical approaches to designing and assessing responses to risk today tend to focus on hazards, compliance, or narrow ROI which often end up missing interdependencies, amplifying effects, lived experience, justice, and the connective tissue that makes systems adaptive and resilient: governance, relationships, knowledge integration, and feedback loops. The SRR Criteria brings these often-invisible ingredients into view.
A growing repository of case studies
Together with the SRR Working Group, we also identified responses which show potential to address systemic risks across levels – local, regional, national, and international – including seemingly discrete responses that were not originally designed with systemic risk and systemic risk reduction in mind, but appear to be acting to reduce systemic risks, which we can all learn from. They show you the concrete ways that individuals and organizations are applying systems thinking, navigating complexity, and/or integrating multiple knowledge systems into plans and actions.
These case studies fall into eight types of responses: institutions, coalitions, policies, frameworks, programs, financial mechanisms, legal tools, and methodologies. Each was assessed against all 14 SRR criteria using publicly available information. Whilst responses do not fully meet all criteria, many showed strong alignment on addressing complexity, justice, compassion, inclusion of diverse perspectives, and centering of vulnerable communities. Where there is a lack of available evidence to demonstrate that criteria are being met, we note promising signals - such as governance shifts, new partnerships, and learning loops - that suggest momentum.
Explore the growing bank of case studies. The responses we highlight in this series are not in-depth write-ups of in-country research projects; they are in-motion efforts shaped by politics, resources, timing, and unintended consequences. In complex systems, success is less about a perfect plan and more about how quickly actors sense what’s changing, include those most affected, and adapt together.
You can also apply the SRR Criteria to assess your own work today! See STEER – Systemic Tool for Exploring and Evaluating Risks – an open-access tool designed to help guide users to understand and respond to today's compounding and cascading risks.
