Crises can come in different forms and dimensions and serve as stress tests for critical infrastructures. The world has seen various crises in the past decade, such as pandemics, wars, droughts, and forest fires and resulting function failures. These crises have affected, transformed, and reshaped critical infrastructures, influencing how they are perceived and discussed.

Crises play a vital role in defining the meaning and understanding of criticality and vulnerability, and they can lead to transformation processes in critical infrastructures. Besides, crises not only reveal vulnerabilities but also require responsibility, trust, and transformation processes. These terms are re-evaluated in the context of trust in technology, security, humans, and critical infrastructures in general. Who is responsible, and who must trust?

The KRITIS research training group has an interdisciplinary socio-technical perspective and aims to address such questions at the conference. The event intends to bring together experts from different fields, such as philosophy, political science, civil engineering, computer science, urban and spatial planning, architecture, sociology, and history, as well as practitioners from public administration and infrastructure operators. Different kinds of crises, such as pandemics and any other type of crisis, and their impact on infrastructures on different levels, as well as multiple approaches on how to define a crisis, are the main interests of the conference. Therefore, we appreciate it if contributions also address the understanding of crises regarding their approaches.

The conference aims to encourage interdisciplinary discussions about vulnerability, responsibility, and trust, examining their impact on critical infrastructures after crises and questioning whether any changes or transformations have occurred.

We are inviting abstracts in English language within 100 – 300 words . For details regarding submissions, please check out the Call for Abstracts.

⬤ Submissions for the conference are closed