IRDR International Center of Excellence IRDR
"Resilience Economics and Sustainable Risk Transitions"
Resilience Economics and Sustainable Risk Transitions (ICoE-RE&SRT)
The Department of Economics of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) hosts one of the International Centres of Excellence (ICoE) of the programme Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR). IRDR is the global research programme on disaster risk, co-sponsored by the International Science Council (ISC) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction ( UNDR). The Centre is led by Associate Professor Associate Professor Stella Tsani.
Recognition
The Centre was selected by the IRDR Scientific Committee in October 2025, following an international open call (IRDR announcement, NKUA announcement). It is one of the few Centres in the international network hosted by a Department of Economics.
Why a Centre for Resilience Economics?
Heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and water scarcity are hitting the Mediterranean more and more often. Their impacts are unevenly distributed: rural areas, islands and vulnerable groups bear the highest costs. Disaster risk reduction is not only a technical challenge. It is also a matter of economics, public finance, markets, institutions and governance..
Most IRDR Centres of Excellence focus on natural hazards, infrastructure or community resilience. The NKUA Centre fills a gap. It examines how economic and financial systems respond to and recover from disasters and systemic shocks,and how transitions (energy, climate, just transition) can be designed with risk in mind.
What do we do
The Center acts as a regional hub with global reach for the Mediterranean, Southern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It connects economics with environmental sciences, engineering and policy through three pillars:
- Interdisciplinary research: economic vulnerability models, scenario and foresight analysis, resilience pathways and policy evaluation under risk conditions, in collaboration with the international IRDR network.
- Capacity building: undergraduate and postgraduate courses, doctoral training, summer schools and workshops for students, young researchers, public administration officials and civil society, drawing also on the CIVIS European university alliance and Erasmus+.
- Policy support: policy briefs, decision-support tools and science-policy dialogue for national governments, municipalities and regions, in line with the Sendai Framework, the Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement.
Thematic priorities
- Economic impacts of extreme heat and water scarcity in Greece.
- Financing disaster risk reduction: insurance, public finance, sovereign wealth funds.
- Cross-border risk governance in the Eastern Mediterranean, e.g. wildfires and climate-related migration.
- Risk in an interconnected world: technology transfer, trade and carbon border adjustment mechanisms.
- Just transition, energy resilience and the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus.
- Sustainable finance and innovative financial instruments for resilience.
Networks and partnerships
The Center builds on the Department's partnerships with the UNEP/Mediterranean Action Plan, the Blue Plan – MED 2050, the FEMISE, the the Bank of Greece Climate Change Impacts Study Committee, the European's Commission's Just Transition Platform and the Cohesion for Transition Community of Practice of the European Commission. It also actively contributes to activities and networks of EASAC, Global Young Academy (GYA), Young Academy of Europe (YAE), IPBES. Within NKUA, it collaborates with the UNESCO Chair on Climate Diplomacy , the Laboratory of Science, Technology and Innovation in Society, and the research laboratories of the Department of Economics.
The team
Scientific Lead: Stella Tsani, Associate Professor.
Assistant Manager : Chrysoula Chitou, PhD Candidate, member of IRDR Young Scientists Programme.
Research team: : faculty members of the Department of Economics, supported by researchers in economics and the natural, engineering and social sciences from NKUA, across Europe and around the world.
Young people at the centre
Through the GY-Energy (Generation Youth Energy) hosted by the Department of Economics of NKUA, and the IRDR Young Scientists Programme, the Centre gives students and young researchers access to international networks, training, and opportunities to take part in the dialogue on risk and resilience.
Contact
Assoc. Prof. Stella Tsani, Scientific Director
Email: stsani@econ.uoa.gr | Tel.: +30 210 368 9439
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