Alertness, Security, Calm

On Monday, Villa Decius once again became a space for knowledge exchange. The social resilience workshop titled “Alertness, Security, Peace” was organised in cooperation with Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), Mieroszewski Centre, and Robert Schuman Foundation Poland.

Social resilience is the ability of society and its institutions to cope with crises, change, and threats – from disasters and conflicts to disinformation and social tensions – without losing the capacity to cooperate and function. It includes not only the ability to endure difficult situations, but also to adapt, rebuild, and draw lessons for the future.

The workshop hosted at Willa was designed to strengthen the competencies, knowledge, and skills of public sector employees, representatives of local government units, and cultural institutions. The conference was opened by Dominika Kasprowicz, Director of Villa Decius, and Ernest Wyciszkiewicz, director of Mieroszewski Centre.

The programme featured leading Polish experts:

• Wojciech Konończuk – “Close and Everyday: Hybrid Warfare Is Already Underway”
• Agnieszka Lichnerowicz – “Between Finland and Ukraine – Lessons, Inspirations, and Conclusions on Resilience from the Experience of Other Countries”
• Ernest Wyciszkiewicz – “From Reaction to Reflection: How to Build Information Resilience in Polish–Ukrainian Affairs?”
• Andrzej Kruczyński – “People, Teamwork, and the Will to Fight”
• Dominika Kasprowicz – “Disinformation as a Threat to the Information Space of Local Government Units. Prevention and Crisis Management”
• Katarzyna Nowak – “Building Society’s Resilience to Threats Related to the Activities of Foreign Intelligence Services”

The strong interest in the workshop and the diversity of participants – including scouts among our guests – reinforced our conviction that there is a need to continue building a broad network of competencies in this area. A recurring theme throughout all presentations was the pressure of disinformation and the threat of hybrid conflict, particularly originating from Russia.

We thank our partners for their collaboration and all participants for their active engagement in the event.