23-24 April 2026 / Budapest
23-24 April 2026 / Budapest
23-24 April 2026 – MagNet Community House,
Pallavicini Palace, Budapest
The World Adaptation Forum (WAF) convenes its third edition in a context of sustained global volatility and interconnected crises. Leaders across sectors and geographies are increasingly confronted with systemic challenges (economic, geopolitical, environmental, technological, and societal) that exceed the capacity of conventional governance, planning, and risk-management frameworks.
Established as a public-benefit, non-profit initiative through broad international collaboration, WAF provides a focused platform for disciplined, evidence-based engagement on adaptation to inevitable consequences and the need for new leadership approaches. While still a specialist forum, its relevance and reach are expanding as systemic fragility becomes more visible and persistent.
The Forum enables candid discussion in a trusted setting and has demonstrated its ability to build cohesive international networks that support leaders beyond the event itself.
Juan García Martínez – Research Manager at Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters
Juan Bartolomé García Martínez is a resilience researcher focused on global catastrophic food-system failure. Holding a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Twente (Netherlands), he serves as Research Manager at the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED) and co-founded the Observatorio de Riesgos Catastróficos Globales (ORCG). Over more than five years he has led interventions to support societies under civilisation-scale shocks – especially abrupt sunlight-reduction events and cascading supply-chain failures. He has published over 20 scientific papers on resilient food systems and non-agricultural food production, and has advised policy initiatives including national playbooks for nuclear-winter preparedness.
Willem Naudé – Professor at the RWTH Aachen University
Wim Naudé is Professor of the Economics of Innovation, Trade and Development at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He has previously worked at Maastricht University, United Nations University and Oxford University. His research asks: Will Prometheus’ gift undo the world? The modern economic system, built on technological innovation and cheap fossil fuels, has transformed into a predatory global capitalism marked by inequality, conflict, and ecological overshoot. His latest books – The Economic Decline of the West: Guns, Oil and Oligarchs and Economic Growth and Societal Collapse – weave together his interests in innovation, trade, development and the habitability of a transforming planet.
Roberta Boscolo – Head of the Climate and Energy Unit at the WMO
Roberta Boscolo is a climate and energy scientist with over twenty years of global experience, specialising in the Water-Energy-Food nexus and the scaling of science-based adaptation and mitigation strategies in support of sustainable development. She holds a degree in Physics and an MSc in Physical Oceanography, and completed advanced climate and energy studies in international organisations and leading institutions. Prior to her current role, she served as Chief of the WMO Liaison Office in New York. Recognised among the Global 50 Women in Sustainability and a Top Voice for the Green Economy, she serves on the Expert Advisory Panel of the The Earthshot Prize category “Fix Our Climate” and is a nominee for the LUCE Award for Legacy Women in Energy.
Maya Frost – Adaptation Activist, and Founder of Collapse Forward
Maya Frost is a creative disruptor helping collapse-aware leaders turn dread into depth, discovery, daring, and doing. Inspired by her early experience of profound loss and her pandemic-era pro bono work, she created Doom to Bloom™, a 30-day process that has transformed the lives of those struggling with devastating grief in 20 countries. In the early 2000s, her playful, eyes-wide-open approach to mindfulness was featured in over 150 media outlets worldwide. In 2009, she took on traditional education in the U.S. in her book, The New Global Student. A happy grandmother of six who has lived in seven countries, Maya is deeply committed to facing profound systemic level collapse with rewilded imagination, enlivened engagement, and joyful collaboration.
George Tsakraklides – Scientist, Systems Thinker and Author on Civilisational Collapse
George Tsakraklides is a scientist and author whose work bridges biology, chemistry, and the social sciences to explore the systemic drivers behind civilisational collapse. Trained in molecular biology, chemistry, food science and earth sciences, his early career focused on consumer research and behavioural analysis for major corporations before turning to independent inquiry. His writing challenges long-standing dogmas across economics, science, anthropology and social studies, opening the way to new understandings of the past that can illuminate the future. He has published six books, including Beyond the Petri Dish, The Unhappiness Machine, and In the Grip of Necrocapitalism, exploring the human condition in times of systemic level crisis.
Florian Ulrich Jehn – Associate Researcher at Center for Critical Computational Studies
Florian Ulrich Jehn is an environmental scientist, systems thinker, and resilience researcher, specialising in food security, climate impacts, and complex civilisational risk. Trained in environmental science with a doctorate in hydrology from Justus-Liebig University Giessen, his work has since expanded to analysing extreme climate scenarios and developing innovative strategies for sustaining global food systems after catastrophic events. He leads research at the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED) as well and authors an ongoing living literature review on societal collapse, bridging scientific research, policy, and public understanding of humanity’s most pressing systemic challenges and sustainable long-term planetary resilience.
David Jacome-Polit – Head of Resilient Development at ICLEI World Secretariat
David Jácome-Polit is an urban resilience strategist and systems thinker, specialising in inclusive and sustainable urban transformation across the Global South and beyond. Trained as an architect, he holds an MSc in Architectural Engineering and Technology in Sustainable Development from TU Delft. With over fifteen years of experience, he has led major resilience and community-driven initiatives that bridge local needs with global agendas. Formerly Metropolitan Director of Resilience and Chief Resilience Officer for Quito, he now serves as Head of Resilient Development at ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability organisation, advancing just and transformative urban futures grounded in equity, participation, and long-term profound systemic change.
David Betz – Professor at the King’s College London
David Betz is a war studies scholar and strategic analyst, specialising in insurgency, cyber-warfare and fortifications. He holds a BA and MA from Carleton University and a PhD from the University of Glasgow. For over twenty years he has been based at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, where he is now Professor of War in the Modern World and leads the Insurgency Research Group. His research covers topics such as Russian military studies, future war, insurgency and counter-insurgency, propaganda and strategic communications, fortifications, and civil wars. He has advised a range of governments including the USA, UK, Canada and Israel, as well as international institutions such as NATO, the UN, and other global organisations.
Danilo Brozović – Associate Professor at the University of Skövde
Danilo Brozović is a business scholar and social scientist from Sweden, specialising in strategic flexibility, sustainability, and the future of complex socio-economic systems. Trained in business administration, his research examines how organisations adapt to disruption and systemic risk, and how narratives of societal collapse and renewal can inform resilient transformation. He bridges management science with futures studies and speculative science fiction, publishing widely in leading international journals, including Futures. His recent work seeks to expand the ethical and creative horizons of sustainability in the twenty-first century, integrating insights from complexity theory, and human imagination to explore pathways toward viable futures.
Gaya Herrington – Vice President of Sustainability Research at Schneider Electric
Gaya Herrington is an internationally known sustainability researcher and postgrowth economist. She believes that true sustainability will not be achieved without transforming our economic system away from an obsession with growth to one that centers around societal and ecological wellbeing. She’s a Club of Rome Member, and holds a Master’s degree in Econometrics (Amsterdam University), and another in Sustainability (Harvard University). Since her peer-reviewed article in Yale’s Journal of Industrial Ecology went viral in 2021, Gaya has been offering a vision for something society would want to do even if it was not faced with impending ecosystem breakdown: re-define the economic purpose to meeting all human needs within planetary boundaries by design.