This submission provides input on the UK Government's National Resilience Strategy Call for Evidence, which sought “public engagement to inform the development of a new Strategy that will outline an ambitious new vision for UK National Resilience and set objectives for achieving it.” In response, an interdisciplinary team of experts at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk worked to prepare a concrete response to this call. In this document, we aim to share the contents of our submission for public deliberation.

While we laud the UK government's inititiative to develop a new National Resilience Strategy, we argue that more work can and should be done to categorize and identify catastrophic, and existential risks; we emphasize the importance of taking a long-term perspective on mitigating and responding to the challenges these pose; and we encourage the development of a more comprehensive strategy, as these risks are all intertwined in an interconnected and complex environment.

In our responses, we focus on the six broad thematic areas of the National Resilience Strategy (Risk and Resilience, Responsibilities and Accountability, Partnerships, Community, Investment, and Resilience in an Interconnected World), and provide key recommendations for improving UK national resilience, both from a general perspective on existential and global catastrophic risks, as well as with regards to policies in key risk domains such as in biorisk, climate risk, or emerging technologies within critical national infrastructure & - defence systems.

While we laud the UK government's initial to develop a new National Resilience Strategy, we argue that more work can and should be done to categorize and identify catastrophic, complex, and existential risks; we emphasize a long-term perspective on mitigating and responding to the threats these pose; and we encourage the development of a more comprehensive strategy, as these risks are all intertwined in an interconnected and complex environment.

In our responses, we focus on the six broad thematic areas of the National Resilience Strategy (Risk and Resilience, Responsibilities and Accountability, Partnerships, Community, Investment, and Resilience in an Interconnected World), and provide key recommendations for improving UK national resilience, both from a general perspective on existential and global catastrophic risks, as well as with regards to policies in key risk domains such as in biorisk, climate risk, or emerging technologies within critical national infrastructure & - defence systems.