CONVERGE - Fostering resilience amid converging crises

Armed conflict and climate extremes increasingly converge, creating compound crises that destabilize livelihoods and governance systems. Existing research often treats climate, conflict, displacement, and food insecurity as interconnected but analytically separate challenges. This project adopts an integrated approach to examine how environmental and political shocks interact across spatial and social scales to shape vulnerability, mobility, and social cohesion. By engaging with policy communities, it also seeks to build a stronger evidence base for policy interventions. We bring together an early-career team with complementary expertise: climate- conflict dynamics and forecasting (Vesco), migration and displacement in crisis-affected regions (Petrova), behavioural survey research on community responses to shocks (Döring), governance and resilience in war-affected disaster areas (Rosvold), and the nexus of food insecurity, unrest, and mobilization (Rudolfsen). 

Together, we examine 1) how compound climate and conflict shocks impact affected societies, 2) through which mechanisms interventions can mediate vulnerability and 3) what interve ntions can strengthen resilience. The project will use collaborative workshops and comparative analyses to integrate insights from ongoing datasets, survey research , and machine-learning models. Each workshop will link methodological reflection with empirical synthesis, producing joint outputs such as data reviews, methodological notes, and policy briefs. Hosting these activities within the IAS network will provide an ideal setting for sustained exchange across disciplines and for developing new collaborations beyond our existing research environments. Collaboration with policy actors, including humanitarian agencies, ensures engagement with practical needs and enhances societal relevance. The network will also lay the groundwork for future collaborative research and foster the integration of early-career scholars in this field. The project’s interdisciplinary framework bridges political science, geography, climate science, and social psychology. Its findings will advance knowledge of how environmental shocks and conflict shape social behaviour and adaptation, generating evidence to inform humanitarian aid, peacebuilding, climate adaptation, and food security.