The CNDS Forum 2026 brought together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to discuss natural hazards, crisis preparedness, and total defence in an evolving risk landscape. The forum highlighted the importance of collaboration and how meeting places like this help bridge the gap between research and practice.
RiskLab at the Centre for Societal Risk Research (CSR) at Karlstad University contributed with a session focusing on how such bridges can be built in practice. Jennie Koivisto and Emelie Hindersson (CSR), together with Maria Falkevik (County Administrative Board of Värmland), demonstrated the serious game Energiköping, which connects issues of energy preparedness, planning, and crisis management. The game has been developed at RiskLab at Karlstad University in close collaboration between academia, public actors, and other societal stakeholders. During the session, participants had the opportunity to play the game themselves and experience how co-creative processes can function as tools for dialogue, shared understanding, and learning across sectors.
The session also highlighted RiskLab’s role as a research infrastructure and social innovation environment, where games, visualizations, and other methods are developed to make complex societal risks more understandable and useful in decision-making processes. Experiences from RiskLab show that game-based methods are effective for exploring scenarios, making decisions, and to reflect on consequences.
The day offered valuable opportunities for dialogue, both in the panels and through informal discussions during breaks. In the exhibition area, CNDS researchers presented posters, and RiskLab showcased a selection of serious games and pedagogical models in the field of societal risk, where visitors could try out and discuss the methods.
In the final session of the day, Margareta Wahlström—Chair of the Solidarity Committee for Afghanistan, honorary doctor at Karlstad University, and member of CSR’s advisory board —was recognized for her long-standing and valuable contributions to CNDS and to disaster risk reduction efforts in both Swedish and international contexts.
Overall, the CNDS Forum 2026 demonstrated how collaboration, dialogue, and practice-oriented tools can strengthen societal crisis preparedness, with a particular focus on translating knowledge into action in the local contexts where crises arise and are managed.
Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS) is a research collaboration between researchers from the Centre for Societal Risk Resarch at Karlstad University, Uppsala University and Swedish Defence University.
