About the Metropolitan Resilience Network (MRN)
The Metropolitan Resilience Network (MRN) brings together public and private sector organizations to collaborate on shared risks across the New York/ New Jersey/ Connecticut region
Why is the Metropolitan Resilience Network (MRN) needed? Disruptions from both natural hazards and man-made threats are increasing.
A wide range of hazards threaten our organizations including severe weather, flooding, utility outages, cyber attacks, terrorism and more. Greater understanding of these risks and their impacts, more coordinated planning, sharing of information and resources as well as more effective collaboration between government and business during response to and recovery from disruptions are all critical to mitigating the impacts of these disruptions on our businesses and wider society.
What is MRN? A powerful network of businesses, government and critical infrastructure collectively addressing shared risks. The MRN is an innovative public-private initiative enabling more effective preparation for, response to and recovery from the range of disruptions that increasingly impact the metropolitan New York area. The Network enables businesses, government and other stakeholders to collaborate and bring together a range of capabilities and resources to address shared risks.
Who is Involved? The Network focuses on fostering truly regional, cross-jurisdictional and cross-industry resilience. The key elements of the network are businesses, targeted government agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) and response organizations, universities and research organizations, other resilience / security efforts and critical infrastructure. The network was initially developed in the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy to address the clear need for wider public-private collaboration on shared risks. Focused on the Agency's customers, tenants, partners as well as the wider region, this first of its kind resilience network was championed by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey's (PANYNJ) Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in the Office of the Chief Security Officer. The PANYNJ is a unique governmental entity with a distinct regional perspective on resilience and the operator of some of the nation's most iconic infrastructure from international airports (JFK, LaGuardia, Newark) to its bridges and tunnels to its leading maritime ports as well as the World Trade Center. The Agency saw the opportunity to serve as a critical catalyst in funding and directing the development of an innovative cross-jurisdictional and public-private network of what has grown to be nearly 400 organizations spanning government, business and not-for-profits all sharing information, coordinating actions and generally collaborating on current and emerging risks to the region. NYU INTERCEP developed the MRN with PANYNJ and hosts and staffs its activities.
What does the Network do? The core activities of the MRN are:
Senior staff face-to-face forums with:
Risk briefings from leading experts on current and emerging challenges.
Senior-level relationship building with the region’s vital organizations.
Sharing of planning assumptions to assist businesses, governments and critical infrastructure with understanding what each is likely to do in a crisis and the triggers for key actions.
Best practices in resilience.
Real-time communications and collaboration platform enabling not only communications but also information sharing and collaborative activity before, during and after disruptive events.
“Flash surveys” of targeted companies and organizations to clarify damage assessments, next steps planned by key stakeholders and resource requirements, in large part ascertaining “who is doing what” to inform more effective response and recovery operations.
Situational awareness / event-related status sharing forums including conference calls and web forums during disruptions / crises.
Identifying needs for assistance to accelerate recovery after an incident and the availability of resources to assist others in a crisis.
“Hot Washes”, “After Action Reports" and forums with the public and private sectors to identify lessons learned and best practices after major disruptive events.
Best practice resource sharing includes an online resource of lessons learned and best practices in operational resilience for both the private and public sectors.
Quick reference resource of key organizational contacts across the region with targeted businesses, NGO’s, local/state/federal government agencies and critical infrastructure operators.
Joint public-private exercises are explored for targeted stakeholders.
Cross-industry and cross-discipline integration, “connecting not duplicating” existing related efforts in resilience, preparedness, security and risk management to leverage the varying capabilities of these efforts and to enable more coordinated and informed actions by all.
Annual Global Risk Digest scanning a diversity of risk assessments and reports from a variety of expert sources and providing a distillation of key risks to your organization.
Special projects addressing key issues: The Network undertakes targeted special projects on an annual basis addressing key issues and challenges. Many of these involve the active engagement of key subject matter experts including assistance from collaborators from New York University, Rutgers University, and Fordham University. Recent projects of the Network include:
An “Organizational Resilience Strategy” focused on organizations and the wider regional community, including:
identification of core principles of resilience based upon global best practices and standards.
development of a flexible, criteria-based framework to act as a road map for advancing operational resilience and risk management across the organization.
“Common Operational Picture” of key elements of the regional supply chain with an initial focus on aviation, bridges and tunnels, and maritime sectors exploring core external relationships with customers, suppliers and other key organizations.
Plan for more effective business-government as well as business-business assistance during emergency events including facilitating access to critical resources in a crisis using a mutual aid capability.
The effort is developing a global prototype for public-private engagement in other major metropolitan areas: Key elements of the MRN are reflected in an evolving prototype for similar endeavors to be shared with other major international cities and their wider metropolitan areas.
The International Center for Enterprise Preparedness (InterCEP) at New York University is hosting the MRN. InterCEP is a leading center focusing on advancing the resilience of both organizations and wider society. InterCEP brings together key elements of both the private and public sectors to actively collaborate on shared risks throughout the world as well as to assist in defining the critical elements and best practices of the evolving discipline of resilience. The Center also hosts the Global Resilience Network (GRN) which focuses internationally and brings together leading multi-national corporations to cooperate on common risks with local governments and NGO's across the globe. The MRN builds upon and integrates many of the Center’s activities which grow from over twelve years of active engagement with the public and private sectors locally and globally. For more information, contact InterCEP staff at: intercep@nyu.edu
