Annual Crisis Governance Meeting

We’re very excited to share with you our second keynote speaker: Governor Cathy Berx. She will speak at our Annual Crisis Governance Meeting 2025 on Friday, September 19 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.  

Title: Resilience in Practice: The Role of Governor

Each year, Governor Berx presents her State of the Province, offering critical reflections on the evolving role of provincial leadership. In this year’s address, she will focus on resilience as a core principle of contemporary governance. Drawing on her experience at the intersection of multiple policy levels, she will explore how governors can function as coordinators and bridge-builders in the face of disruptive events and complex societal challenges.

About the Speaker

Cathy Berx is Governor of the Province of Antwerp, where she represents the federal, and Flemish governments, acting as a crucial link across all levels of governance. In this role, she supports area-specific policy on matters such as safety & security, mobility, environment and innovation. She is responsible for the administrative supervision of local authorities and coordinates emergency response services to safeguard public order during major incidents.

Governor Berx is known for her mediating leadership style and her ability to navigate complex governance systems with resilience and clarity.  She also holds a position as Professor of Law at the University of Antwerp.

We are honored to welcome her to this year’s program and look forward to her insights on resilience from a uniquely governmental perspective.

We are delighted to announce Naim Kapucu as our special guest and keynote speaker at the Annual Crisis Governance Meeting on September 18-19, 2025. 

Resilient by Design: Rethinking Network Governance for a Disruptive World
Abstract: As crises grow in scale and complexity, resilience must evolve from a reactive stance to a deliberate design principle. This keynote examines how adaptive, collaborative governance networks can strategically navigate disruption and foster innovation. Focusing on the institutional dimensions of resilience, it highlights the critical interface between policy and governance in interdependent, polycentric systems.

About the speaker
Dr. Naim Kapucu is Pegasus Professor of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Central Florida, where he also serves as Associate Dean of Research and Innovation in the College of Community Innovation and Education. He is a joint faculty member with the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs and the Center for Resilient, Intelligent, and Sustainable Energy Systems. A Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, Dr. Kapucu was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Democratic Resilience, jointly hosted by Flinders University and Carnegie Mellon University Australia. He earned his Ph.D. in Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh. He previously served as Director of UCF’s School of Public Administration (detailed bio is available at https://ccie.ucf.edu/person/naim-kapucu).

We look forward to his insights on building resilient governance systems fit for a disruptive world.

Resilience in a wicked world. How to anticipate, cope, adapt, and govern?

Never has so much been spoken about “resilience” as in recent years. According to some, we must ensure that we are better equipped to handle unexpected events, particularly those that can shake us as individuals, families, or communities. Others argue that resilience is not just about what we have, but about what we do. The term “resilience” seems to have ingrained itself into all facets of our society (Tan, 2022). We use it in our daily communications; scientists study the phenomenon, politicians regard it as important, and even large institutions such as the WHO or the European Commission regularly debate the subject with international experts.

Stephanie Duchek (2020) distinguishes three phases in resilience: anticipation, coping, and adaptation. Each phase requires specific mental and behavioral actions and is supported by necessary resources. From a crisis governance perspective, one could argue that this approach is a good starting point; however, organizations should also commit to an (inter)organizational system of roles, rules, structures, and processes that reliably enables them to prepare for and cope with crises effectively (Albers et al., 2024).

We will further explore this theme during the second edition of the Crisis Governance Event, which will take place on September 18 and 19, 2025. Both researchers and practitioners are invited to share their knowledge, experiences, insights, or issues at this interactive two-day meeting in Antwerp, Belgium. Therefore, we encourage you to submit your proposal for presentation.

The Crisis Governance Event will center on the following four domains:

Anticipation

• Signal overload and confusing signals: How do we deal with them? 
• How to filter the right signals? Which signals do you trust?
• How to deal with stress caused by confusing signals?
• Or should we better set up a stakeholder network prior to a crisis?
• If so, how to design, organize, and coordinate the network?

Coping

• Hybrid threads – how to identify and avert them?
• How to manage (dis)trust when it comes to the necessary exchange of information during a crisis?
• Stakeholder management in crisis, easier said than organized?
• What is legitimate to do in a crisis, and what isn’t?
• New/emergent/temporary networks during crisis

Adaptation

• What did we learn from crisis management during the COVID-19 pandemic? And what not?
• Why is it so difficult to learn? Is it the learning or the inability to change?
• Cognition versus behavior; where in the process is the bottleneck that obstructs learning?
• What are the barriers and enablers to change organizations in anticipating a crisis?

Governance

• What are the roles, rules, structures, and processes that reliably enable organizations to effectively prepare for and cope with crises?
• Do we have to focus on an organizational level or on an inter-organizational level for crisis governance? Who do we need to include?
• What are the preconditions for setting up such an (inter)organizational system?
• How does crisis governance for private organizations differ from public organizations?

All the suggested topics serve as examples of presentations that may fall within the specific domain.