Founded in 2022 by Giuseppe Dal Pra, the Odyssean Institute is dedicated to reducing our exposure to civilisational risks. It was developed from two treatises authored in 2017 and 2019, aiming to better address complex risks to civilisation, democratically.​

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In the face of existential stakes, we believe the only solutions that are both viable and desirable are those that are empirically based and democratically generated.​

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The Odyssean Process, is a unique methodology designed to achieve effective ends through legitimate, democratic means.

We are a diverse, multidisciplinary team of researchers and operations staff based globally, with headquarters in the United Kingdom.

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Our backgrounds span fields related to complex, transdisciplinary risks and how to address them collectively.

 

We research best practices for decision making under uncertain and complex conditions, associated resilience against extreme risk in supply chains, and how to positively enable flourishing in the long term future through these focuses. 

In the main, technical sense, the name derives from Dr. Murray Gell-Mann’s ‘Odyssean Education’: a combination of the natural and social sciences for a more holistic appreciation of diffuse problems and creative solutions to them.

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In another sense, it echoes the ancient Greek hero, Odysseus, and his journey home, or the Odyssey.

 

Our mission is not dissimilar: we help citizens chart a course through complex challenges and overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. To do this properly will take time, and it will be quite the journey.

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The journey, much more than the destination, transformed Odysseus. Similarly, we believe that our process as much as the outcomes it generates will develop citizens’ sense of self and autonomy, rather than simply lifting them to their destination. 

Existing efforts in long-term policy making tend to suffer from methodological inefficiencies and democratic deficits. More innovative approaches also rarely go beyond theory into practice, especially in existential and global catastrophic risks.

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The Odyssean Institute saw this absence as a challenge, and was inspired to forge solutions to civilisational risks that are both technically sound and democratically legitimate.

 

In the face of complex, interlocking crises, we hope to show a better way forward and provide citizens with an antidote to resignation, apathy, or despair.

Our mission is to chart a course to global resilience against civilisational risks through democratic means.

 

We analyse diverse, interlocking risks and their complex solution space using state-of-the-art empirical modelling and expert testimony.

 

We then take these tools to the people, who have the final say. Citizens’ Assembles convene members of the public to engage with the evidence, deliberate on the most pressing challenges of our time, and forge long-term policies to address them. 

Civilisational risk encompasses global catastrophic risks (global, severe, but non-terminal), existential risks (global, terminal, and permanent) and institutional decay, which exacerbate other threats by failing to adequately address them.

 

Addressing these risks rigorously is critical for safeguarding humanity’s future: they threaten either humanity’s very existence as a species, or the democratic and technological developments we hold dear.

 

We believe that avoiding the former must not come at the expense of the latter.

The Odyssean Institute addresses civilisational risk through the Odyssean Process, which integrates three core components: foresight exercises by experts (horizon scanning) with robust decision-making (DMDU) and public deliberation (Citizens’ Assemblies).

 

Horizon Scanning

The Odyssean Process begins with our team drawing upon existing research on civilisation risks as well as conducting its own.

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Our Horizon Scan elicits and weighs experts’ assessments of the most critical, tractable and neglected threats to humanity.

 

Decision-Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU)

DMDU is an empirical methodology that maps out the solution space to these top-tier risks: how they interlock, the feedback loops between them, and thereby the trade-offs and/or win-wins of tackling them in tandem.

 

Citizens’ Assemblies (CA)

Citizens’ Assemblies are the culmination of the Odyssean Process, where members of the public gather to collectively

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A. Engage with the evidence from the previous stages of the Process, 

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B. Deliberate on the most effective policy solutions, and

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C. Forge policies to be advocated for or adopted in the legislature.

We hold that the means should mirror the ends.

 

We want not only to avoid civilisational risks, but to enrich society in the process of overcoming them.

 

To avoid one civilisation risk while sacrificing democratic gains and accountability would be a Pyrrhic victory. It would simply delay the onset of a new set of crises.

 

Authoritarian or solely technocratic solutions are not merely negative ends. Without democratic consultation and consent, even the best-intentioned policy interventions will meet resistance or resentment.

 

The Odyssean Institute is committed to the notion that the only robust, effective, and sustainable solutions to civilisation risk are those that are empirically guided, expert informed, and democratically legitimate.

 

As such, we centre subsidiarity, democracy, and our inherent innovativeness and collaborative capacities in our work.

The Odyssean Process consists of Horizon Scanning, Decision-making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU), and Citizens’ Assemblies.

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Horizon Scanning

Horizon Scanning elicits expert judgement on the criticality, tractability and neglectedness of discrete and interlocking crises.

 

A Horizon Scan led by William J. Sutherland in 2009 on global conservation presciently identified major risks to our ecosystems, such microplastic pollution, which have only increased in salience since then.

 

The Odyssean Institute conducted the first ever Global Catastrophic Risk-wide Horizon Scan in 2024, which identified fifteen emerging trends with identifiable tipping points that are likely to yield irreversible civilisational impacts. 

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The area given highest priority was the integration of Artificial Intelligence into nuclear weapons systems.

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Decision-Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU)

DMDU is an empirical methodology that runs simulations of the complex tradeoffs between risk-mitigation strategies at scale, so as to better map the solution space.

 

DMDU has been implemented by the Delta Commissioner’s ‘Room for the River Initiative’ in the Netherlands to form a thirty-year plan for a range of possible flooding scenarios

 

It has also been used by the New Zealand government’s national Guidance on Coastal Hazards and Climate Change to address similar coastal hazards related to sea-level rising.

 

The Odyssean Institute is advocating and building its capacity for the use of DMDU to address myriad existential risks, climate change and pandemics, to post-nuclear war recovery.

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Citizens’ Assemblies (CA)

Citizens’ Assemblies convene members of the public to engage with high-priority risk areas on an evidence basis and to forge solutions to them.

 

CAs have been implemented in Ireland to generate solutions to policy questions around LGBTQ+ rights and abortion (2016), as well as biodiversity loss (2022).

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In Mongolia, CAs are formally embedded in the constitutional process, with a law (2017) requiring citizen deliberation before effecting proposed amendments. 

 

A CA was convened in France (2019-20) to deliberate on national carbon reduction. It made 149 proposals to the government, around 40% of which were ratified in the National Assembly in 2021.

 

The Odyssean Institute is partnered with Missions Publiques to implement CAs and forge people-focused climate resilience strategies in multiple target countries, including Chad and Côte d'Ivoire.

In line with the guiding principle of the Odyssean Process - that the means must mirror ends - our definition of success is two-fold:

 

Success in our theoretical efforts, such as conducting Horizon Scans, DMDU, and other novel research, would be:

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A. Demonstrating effective foresight in identifying emerging and ongoing civilisational risks and their solution spaces.

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B. Generating broader appeal within and beyond academia for collective, transdisciplinary, empirical, and solution-oriented expertise.​

 

Success in our practical efforts, such as convening Citizens’ Assemblies, would be:

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A. The advocacy for or adoption of technically sound and democratically legitimate policies into law, which significantly reduce or remove the threat of one or more existential risks

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B. The nourishment of civic responsibility, epistemic seriousness, and democratic culture

The Odyssean Institute has provided insights on democratic collapse, nuclear resilience, cascading systems failure, and food security.

 

Our work scoping these risks, identifying their tipping points, and mapping their solution spaces has informed and, with future development, will guide the public and policy makers to meet these existential challenges.

The Odyssean Process is an innovative approach to decision making for an uncertain future, and as the flagship of our integrative efforts has been covered above.

 

The Global Resilient Anticipatory Infrastructure Network, or GRAIN is another of our designed contributions to the field.

 

We want to use the framework to encourage bilateral and multilateral cooperation - including through preferential trade agreement, scientific diplomacy, and other unconventional collaborations - to generate investment in the many dimensions global civilisation would need to recover from a catastrophe or collapse.