Curriculum
We offer teaching and training on the topics included in the reading list below, with options for both individuals and organisations.
Each training programme is tailored to the needs of the client, but typically involves a combination of lectures, small-group sessions, and exercises.
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Exercises for previous cohorts have included:
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Root-Cause Analysis
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Systems Mapping
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Backcasting
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Scenario Planning
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Policymaker Role-Plays
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Wargaming
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And several more
Thus, attendees are trained in not only the content, but also valuable foresight and decision-making techniques.
A far more detailed syllabus is also included, which contains topic summaries, solo exercises, and an extensive bibliography.
For a quote, get in touch at contact@odysseaninstitute.org.
Overview
This is an introductory syllabus focusing on the problems the Odyssean Institute seeks to address, covering:
1. Introduction to Civilisational Risk
2. Global Systemic Risk, Cascading Disasters, and Polycrisis
3. Tipping Points, Critical Transitions, and Systems Failures
6. Totalitarianism and the Drivers of Catastrophe
7. Governing Civilisational Risk
8. Expert Elicitation of Judgement
9. Decision-Making under Deep Uncertainty
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In the near future we will add a companion syllabus covering the solutions the Odyssean Institute proposes to implement, notably the three components of the Odyssean Process:
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Expert Elicitation of Judgement
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Complexity Modelling and Decision-Making under Deep Uncertainty
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Deliberative Democracy
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If you have trouble accessing any of the materials, for instance because you lack institutional access, send us an email at contact@odysseaninstitute.org.
Topics
Introduction to Civilisational Risk
(Fisher, 2021).
BBC Future.
(Dal Prá, Asghar, and Chan, 2024).
(Cooke, 2024)
Pending Survival.
Global Systemic Risk, Cascading Disasters, and Polycrisis
(Centeno et al., 2015).
Annual Review of Sociology.
(Mani, Tzachor, and Cole, 2021). Nature Communications.
(Drezner, 2023).
Vox.
(Miller, 2023).
Resilience.
(Undheim, T. A., and D. Zimmer). Stanford University.
Tipping Points, Critical Transitions, and Systems Failures
Science Museum.
(Monbiot, 2014).
Sustainable Human.
(Helbing, 2013).
Nature.
(Homer-Dixon et al., 2015). Ecology and Society.
(Scheffer et al., 2012).
Science.
Resilience and Recovery
(Walker, 2009).
Stockholm Resilience Centre.
(Denkenberger & Greenberg, 2021). Clearer Thinking with
Spencer Greenberg.
(Dartnell, 2016).
TED Archive.
(Maher & Baum, 2013).
Sustainability.
Societal Collapse
(Kemp, 2019).
Aeon.
(Tainter, 2023).
How Worlds Collapse.
(Middleton, 2017).
Reviews in Anthropology.
(Kemp, 2023).
How Worlds Collapse.
(Kemp, 2019).
Aeon.
(Belfield, 2023).
How Worlds Collapse.
Totalitarianism and the Drivers of Catastrophe
(Bostrom & van der Merwe, 2021).
Aeon.
(Minardi, 2020).
BBC Future.
(Cremer & Kemp, 2021).
Social Sciences Research Network.
(Kemp, 2021).
BBC Future.
(Schmachtenberger, 2017).
Civilization Emerging.
Governing Civilisational Risk
(Si Network, 2016).
Systems Innovation.
(Stauffer et al., 2023).
UN Office for Disaster
Risk Reduction.
(Weiner, 2016).
Global Policy.
(Sears, 2021).
Journal of Global Security Studies.
(Boyd & Wilson, 2021).
Policy Quarterly.
(Liu, Lauta, and Maas, 2020).
Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies.
Techniques
Expert Elicitation of Judgement
(Esmail et al., 2022).
Open Book Publishers.
(Sutherland et al., 2019). ScienceDirect.
(Wintle, 2022).
eLife.
(Hemming et al., 2017).
Methods in Ecology and Evolution.
Decision-Making under Deep Uncertainty
(Kalra, 2016).
TEDx Talks.
(Kwakkel, 2024).
TUDelft.
(Reddel, 2022-23).
Effective Altruism Forum, Utilon.
(Marchau et al., 2019).
Springer Nature.
(Kwakkel and Haasnoot, 2018).
(Lempert, Popper and Bankes, 2003).
RAND.
(Rodrigez, Workman and Darch, 2022).
Imperial College London.
(Miro, 2020).
WUCA.
Complexity and History
(Krakauer, 2011).
Cliodynamics.
Deliberative Democracy
Deliberation Intro
(ÄŒesnulaitytÄ— and Chwalisz, 2023).
DemocracyNext.
(Fishkin, 2018).
Oxford University Press.
28-38 (Curato et al. 2017).
Daedalus.
(Chwalisz, 2023).
Royal Society of Arts.
(Miller, 1992).
Political Studies.
(d’Entrèves, 2000).
Theoria, vol. 47, no. 96,
pp. 14–26.
Empirics (Measurement, Research Methodologies)
(Ercan et al.,2022).
Oxford University Press.
(Steenbergen et al., 2003).
Comparative European
Politics 1: 21-48.
(Smith, 2009).
Cambridge University Press.
Long Term Democracy
(Smith, 2021).
Polity Press.
(MacKenzie, 2018).
The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy (Bächtiger et al. 2018). Oxford Handbooks.
Case Studies
(Fan,2022).
Routledge.
(Luskin et al., 2014).
Political Studies , vol. 62, no. 1,
pp. 116–35.
Associated Theory
(Taleb, 2018).
Random House.
Democratic Collapse