Our researcher, Andri Setiawan, has been selected as 1 of the 20 fellows from a total pool of 450 applicants in Postdoctoral Junior Leader fellowships Retaining Call 2025.
The La Caixa Foundation fully funds the project, with a total budget of €320,100 and a duration of 3 years. Through this fellowship, Andri will lead his project (Enring), which aims to develop a novel multi-layered defence framework to increase the structural resilience of critical facilities against multiple hazards.
Our society is increasingly challenged by the growing intensity and frequency of extreme events, which often disrupt critical infrastructure and trigger cascading effects that transform hazards into large-scale disasters. Unfortunately, current design guidelines for critical infrastructure are not adequately equipped to address the uncertainties associated with modern risks. Two key limitations stand out: first, they treat different hazards independently, leading to fragmented risk mitigation strategies in the design process. Second, they primarily focus on common, well-anticipated threats such as floods, winds, and fires, leaving us vulnerable to rare, unpredictable “black swan” events. These unforeseen disasters—such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, or the recent earthquake duplets in Turkey and Syria in 2023—can result in catastrophic consequences, yet existing frameworks fail to fully account for their potential impact.
The Enring project introduces a novel approach to enhancing the resilience of critical facilities through a multi-layered protection framework. This methodology ensures that subsequent layers can effectively take over if one protective layer fails. The layers cover prevention strategies, mitigations, and ultimately containment. Prevention and mitigation are prioritised for common/predictable hazards with a high probability of occurrence but with relatively low to medium consequences. In contrast, containment will serve as the last line of defence for unpredictable events linked with high consequences (black swan events). The synergy between these layers plays a critical role in creating structural systems that are resilient against a range of hazards.
The success of Enring would create a strong and lasting impact on society. More resilient critical infrastructure can provide timely and effective emergency services, which will help to minimise the loss of lives and support the economic community recovery after disasters. Environmentally, more resilient structures can also serve a longer service life, which helps to limit the need for demolition and rebuilding, hence reducing carbon emissions.
