GOVTRUST Centre of Excellence

ROBUST

Robust Crisis Governance in Turbulent Times: Mindset, Evidence, Strategies

| 2022-2025

ROBUST - Robust Crisis Governance in Turbulent Times: Mindset, Evidence, Strategies

Abstract

The focus of European post-pandemic politics is currently on enhancing system capacities for ‘bouncing back’ from crisis to normalcy. These efforts draw on resilience research, which has become the dominant paradigm in crisis management. However, there are broad governance challenges that the resilience approach fails to consider. Centrally, how can European societies harness flexible adaptation and proactive innovation to deliver effective crisis responses in situations, where going back to the way things were is neither possible nor desirable? And how can democratic institutions uphold core values such as democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights in the face of crisis-induced turbulence?

To address these challenges, the ROBUST project aims to set in motion a paradigm shift from ‘resilience’ (‘bouncing back’) to ‘robustness’ (‘building back better’) as the central principle of future crisis governance. The project breaks new ground by operationalizing the concept of robust crisis governance and investigating such responses empirically. We combine historical and comparative analysis at EU, national and local levels to gather a multi-dimensional data set out of which we identify the configurations of factors that drive (or block) robustness in crisis governance. The project studies responses by EU institutions and eight European countries to three recent crises (the financial, refugee and COVID-19 crises) to understand general patterns in system-level crises response, while we also conduct in-depth studies of localized COVID-19 responses ‘on the streets’ of 16 European localities to understand how EU, national and local crisis responses interact and are experienced by citizens. 

On this basis, the ROBUST project delivers the elements of a new mindset along with policy recommendations for enabling the robust crisis governance of the future, all anchored in a learning hub that will serve as the social engine of the paradigm shift envisioned by the project.

Project website

Funding

  • Horizon Europe - Global Challenges Cluster 2 'Culture, Creativity and Inclusive society' - HORIZON-CL2-2021-DEMOCRACY-01-05 'Politics and governance in a post-pandemic world'

Project team

The ROBUST research consortium, led by the University of Roskilde, consists of ten partner institutions from across Europe.

  • ROSKILDE UNIVERSITET, Denmark
  • TALLINNA TEHNIKAÜLIKOOL, Estonia
  • UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO, Italy
  • UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN, Belgium (GOVTRUST)
  • UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT, Netherlands
  • EUROPEAN PUBLIC HEALTH ALLIANCE, Belgium
  • NORD UNIVERSITET, Norway
  • UNIVERSIDAD DE ZARAGOZA, Spain
  • BUDAPESTI CORVINUS EGYETEM, Hungary
  • Masarykova univerzita, Czech Republic

UAntwerp team