11th Maritime Risk Symposium 2020

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>>Check out the MRS 2020 video playlist.<<

For questions about the 2021 Maritime Risk Symposium, please contact Kevin Clement at the University of Houston.

The Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI), a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence, will host the 11th Annual Maritime Risk Symposium (MRS 2020) in collaboration with the National Academy of Sciences. The Symposium will be held virtually the week of Oct. 26-30, 2020. More details on the format will be forthcoming soon.

The theme of MRS 2020 is “Maritime Resilience.” DHS defines resilient infrastructure systems as the “ability of systems, infrastructures, government, business, communities, and individuals to resist, tolerate, absorb, recover from, prepare for, or adapt to an adverse occurrence that causes harm, destruction, or loss of national significance.”  Through presentations, panels and open forums, the symposium will focus on the attributes of resilience to adversarial events of national significance in the maritime domain, using  our experience with COVID-19 as a driver for the discussion.   The objective is less about the specific impacts COVID-19 had and is having, and more on how that event informs us on resiliency for future global upsets, in terms of what works, what gaps have been exposed, and what research questions ought to be studied as a first step towards enhancing Maritime Resilience.    

Keynotes will be presented by Dr. Stephen Flynn, Director of the Global Resilience Institute, Northeastern University, Rear Admiral Donna Cottrell of the U.S. Coast Guard, and Rear Admiral Michael Fossum, Chief Operating Officer of Texas A&M University at Galveston.

Panel topics include:

  • Resilience for Maritime Infrastructure
  • Maritime Resilience and the Human Element
  • Resilience of the Maritime Supply Chain
  • Maritime Resilience and Cybersecurity
  • Inland Waterways and the Great Lakes Resilience
  • Lessons from Recent Disasters
  • Energy Resilience in the Maritime Sector

View MRS Report

 

Evergreen Program

CIRI, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Academy of Sciences immediately following MRS 2020 will host the Evergreen Program.

The Evergreen Program is the Coast Guard’s Strategic Foresight Initiative, tasked with looking over-the-horizon to inform current planning and better prepare the Coast Guard for an uncertain and unpredictable future. Through the use of scenario-based exercises and workshops involving a diverse group of stakeholders, common strategic needs or key success factors can be identified across multiple plausible scenarios to better inform long-term strategic planning efforts.

Poster Session

The 2020 Maritime Risk Symposium invites university and college students from throughout the United States and allied nations to participate in this year’s virtual Maritime Risk Symposium Poster Competition.

The theme of this year’s Maritime Risk Symposium is “Resiliency.” The MRS Poster Session Committee is proud to announce the winners below.

 

 

Sponsors:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine United States Coast Guard