MAPS IE Seminar: Academic Consultancy (using research to influence global strategic policies)

The first time Gianluca heard about the possibility of doing consultancy, he was sceptical. Gianluca was in academia because of ethical choices and perhaps the naïve feeling that we can change the world with our ideas. Doing consultancy felt like a sell-out.

Nowadays, Gianluca is still not a “sales agent”, but his understanding of what consultancy can be is very different.  In this seminar, Gianluca will introduce you to his small journey of mistakes, near misses, and lessons learned. He will bring you some examples of his work with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Greater London Authority, Arup, and Resilience First. His aim is to help you consider if consultancy is your next career move, if it’s something simply not worth it, or if it’s a “necessary evil” you could consider making a difference with your research.

Gianluca has contributed to strategic documents such as the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s Guidelines on National Risk Assessment, Hazards Definition and Classifications Review, Regional and Global Assessment Reports, and edited documents such as the Guidelines on Cascading Effects of Wide-Area Power Failures in collaboration with London Resilience. He is active in consultancies for local authorities and international organisations on topics such as resilience to cascading scenarios and stress testing.

Please have your questions ready for Gianluca.

11th October 2pm - 3pm via Zoom

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More on the Speaker: Dr. Gianluca Pescaroli

Dr. Gianluca Pescaroli is Associate Professor in Operational Continuity and Organisational Resilience at University College London (UCL). His research investigates how to build and improve the continuity of operations during disruptive events, how to minimise their impacts, and how to increase the resilience of the public and private sectors. This includes managing complex challenges such as cascading risks, critical infrastructure failures, systemic and compound dynamics. Gianluca’s work is impact -oriented, aiming to bridge academia and practice.

In 2016, he co-founded the Research Group on Cascading Disasters at UCL. Since then, he contributed to strategic documents such as the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s Guidelines on National Risk Assessment, Hazards Definition and Classifications Review, Regional and Global Assessment Reports, and edited documents such as the Guidelines on Cascading Effects of Wide-Area Power Failures in collaboration with London Resilience. He was one of the lead authors of the Flagship Report Science for Disaster Risk Management 2020: acting today, protecting tomorrow, drafted by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. He is active in consultancies for local authorities and international organisations on topics such as resilience to cascading scenarios and stress testing.

Gianluca has organised a track record of events organised in partnership with stakeholders. In 2021, he organised the Masterclass “Stress Testing for Building Infrastructure Resilience” with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction and The Resilience Shift. In 2023, he developed the first “collegiate conference” with Disaster Recovery Institute International, which is the oldest and largest non-profit that helps organizations around the world prepare for and recover from disaster. Gianluca is now scientific lead of the new project “AGnostic risk management for high Impact Low probability events (AGILE), with 14 international partners financed by the Horizon Europe programme.  He is partners in other projects financed by the European Space Agency and Lloyd’s Register Foundation. 

Related links:

• Dr Gianluca Pescaroli
• Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction
• United Nations for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)
• Resillience Rising
• Arup

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