ERS Berlin Programme

Europe's resilience increasingly depends on trusted partnerships beyond its borders. As democracies navigate geopolitical tensions, technological competition, and growing cyber threats, the question is no longer whether to cooperate, but with whom. This panel brings together policymakers, technology leaders, and international experts to explore the practical realities of building resilience. From AI governance and digital public infrastructure to strategic dependencies and shifting alliances, the discussion will explore how like-minded nations can strengthen resilience while preserving openness, innovation, and democratic values. What can Europe learn from India's AI transformation? How can Canada and Europe deepen cooperation on critical technologies? And what role do trusted international partnerships play in safeguarding sovereignty in an increasingly interconnected yet contested world?

The Compounding Risk Organisations Aren't Structured For! For years, organisations have treated human error, technology failure, and climate disruption as separate risks, each with its own owner. That separation is starting to look like a liability in itself. The framework behind this argument, (Human x Machine x Climate)C, argues these three vectors compound rather than stay contained. Human risk covers behaviors under pressure: error, social engineering, disinformation, fatigue driven judgment failure. Machine risk covers cyber physical attacks, AI and algorithmic failure, and cascading automation dependencies. Climate risk covers extreme weather, resource scarcity, and exposed supply chains. The three interact: a misjudgment can move through governance faster than leadership can respond, and the same infrastructure strained by weather is what human and machine systems already depend on. This structure is now shaping the 2026 RWN Summit programme, under tracks called Foresight, Community, and Regulation. Looking to 2028, the outlook groups near term threats into climate adaptation, geopolitical tension, and economic uncertainty, an environment described as more complex, volatile, and less stable. The open question for any organisation is whether three separate risk conversations still make sense, or whether they need to become one.

How can the gap between AI research and industrial deployment be closed? We discuss the need for an open, federated, sovereign orchestrated knowledge network that integrates industrial data, AI capabilities and cloud-edge technologies into a unified ecosystem, serving Europe's competitiveness with full resilience. Cloud/edge infrastructure, data sharing and governance, sovereign AI models, and business value through Industrial AI.

From the series 'When disruption spreads across regions'. Doc-Read: The Decision Room is a high-intensity, narrative-driven strategic diagnostic for senior leaders that completely replaces traditional slides with deep focus. The session is built entirely around an intelligence-led, 1-to-2-page brief analysing a high-stakes, real-world challenge. Every participant engages in 12 minutes of absolute silence to read and annotate the text, followed by a rigorous, moderated debate anchored strictly in the document's facts.

Europe's pursuit of digital sovereignty has moved from a policy aspiration to an operational reality. Across governments and public administrations, questions about technological dependencies, resilience, security, interoperability and strategic autonomy are increasingly shaping procurement decisions and digital transformation programmes. At the same time, public institutions already operate within highly interconnected ecosystems that combine European solutions, open-source technologies, proprietary software and global cloud platforms. Complete independence is neither technically nor economically realistic. Yet unmanaged dependencies can create strategic vulnerabilities. The central challenge is therefore no longer whether Europe should choose between sovereign and global technologies, but how governments can design resilient digital ecosystems that remain secure, adaptable and capable of action under changing geopolitical, economic and technological conditions. Bringing together perspectives from public administration, technology providers, open-source initiatives and system integrators, this session will explore what digital sovereignty means in practice, which dependencies strengthen resilience and which create risk, and how hybrid operating models may become the foundation of Europe's future digital state.

A live, audience-driven scenario session. A national blackout hits your organisation, no warning, no timeline. Participants respond in real time using Slido as the scenario escalates: communications down, supply chains frozen, fallback systems under pressure. This session turns theory into visceral, practical reckoning.

Cyber crises rarely stop at national borders. As Europe’s digital infrastructure becomes increasingly interconnected, effective cyber resilience depends not only on national capabilities, but also on the ability of governments, institutions and trusted partners to cooperate before, during and after an incident. This session explores how Europe is building a meshed network of cyber collaboration and mutual assistance. How do countries and organisations coordinate when a major cyber incident occurs? What mechanisms enable rapid support and information sharing, and how can cooperation be strengthened before a crisis strikes? Join us for an open discussion on the networks, relationships and practical arrangements that underpin Europe’s collective cyber resilience, and what is needed to make mutual assistance faster, more trusted and more effective.

Doc-Read: The Decision Room is a high-intensity, narrative-driven strategic diagnostic for senior leaders that completely replaces traditional slides with deep focus. The session is built entirely around an intelligence-led, 1-to-2-page brief analysing a high-stakes, real-world challenge. Every participant engages in 12 minutes of absolute silence to read and annotate the text, followed by a rigorous, moderated debate anchored strictly in the document's facts. The session eliminates passive listening, transforming cross-sector experts into a cohesive task force tasked with breaking down and resolving a critical strategic friction point.

How resilient are German companies in today’s increasingly complex cyber threat landscape? As cyber threats evolve and digital dependencies grow, are organisations prepared to withstand disruption and remain operational? The keynote explores Germany’s current threat landscape and the growing resilience challenge facing businesses. What does it take to move from simply protecting systems to building the ability to detect, respond, recover and adapt? It offers practical perspectives on how companies can strengthen cyber resilience and turn uncertainty into preparedness. These questions and perspectives can also be explored and discussed in greater depth during the Q&A.

Can Europe Build the AI Infrastructure It Wants? - Open Mic Session Europe wants resilient and sovereign AI infrastructure, but where does the demand come from? Today, frontier models from companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI are largely not served from European cloud infrastructure. For European cloud providers, this creates a classic chicken-and-egg problem: without significant AI workloads, there is little incentive to build the infrastructure; without the right infrastructure, there is little reason for AI workloads to move. Open-weight models may offer a different path, but only if Europe actively creates the demand for them. This Open Mic will explore what that means in practice. Does Europe need a deliberate industrial policy for AI infrastructure? Should public procurement play a stronger role in creating demand? And what does “sovereignty” actually require if we want European AI infrastructure to be viable, competitive and resilient? Come with a view, a challenge or a provocation. This is an open conversation about what Europe needs to do — not simply what it hopes will happen.

Cloud infrastructure is no longer simply an IT decision. It has become a strategic resilience capability. From energy and healthcare to transportation and government services, the ability of critical infrastructure operators to withstand, adapt to, and recover from disruption increasingly depends on secure, resilient, and trusted digital infrastructure. This session explores how organizations can translate the concept of resilience into operational reality. Lars Fischer and Rebekka Weiss will discuss how cloud technologies support continuity of critical services, improve cyber resilience, and enable faster response and recovery during crises. The discussion will highlight practical experiences, emerging best practices, and the lessons learned from supporting highly regulated and mission-critical environments. The session will further examine the intersection of resilience, security, and digital sovereignty, including how organizations can maintain control, meet regulatory requirements, and reduce strategic vulnerabilities while continuing to innovate. Designed for policymakers, regulators, infrastructure operators, and security leaders, this session offers actionable insights into building resilient digital foundations for the critical infrastructure of the future.

Europe is entering a new era of uncertainty, from geopolitical tensions and economic pressures to energy security, climate risks and shifting global alliances. At the heart of Europe’s response are France and Germany, whose partnership has long been central to shaping the EU’s strategic direction. But can Berlin and Paris still provide the leadership needed to build a more resilient Europe? What should a new Franco-German resilience agenda look like, and how can it strengthen Europe’s capacity to anticipate, adapt and respond to future crises? Join us for an open and interactive conversation exploring the opportunities, tensions and priorities shaping the road from Berlin to Paris—and Europe’s next chapter of resilience. Bring your questions, perspectives and ideas to the discussion.