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Digital resilience

People are heavily dependent on ICTs for basic economic, human, and social capital development. During crises, how do people show resilience through digital technologies?

Context

The global development of ICTs has ushered in a new era of communication and economic development, with people and economies heavily dependent on ICTs for basic economic, human, and social capital development. When conflict or crises interrupts everyday life, how do people show resilience through digital technologies?

DiSTO's Digital Resilience project will ask these questions in the context of Kuwait, Qatar and Sudan.

The project will be undertaken in Kuwait and Qatar with the backdrop of the Iran-US war (2026-), which has had a profound impact on surrounding countries' access to education, work, and government services, as well as citizens' physical and psychological well-being. The project will also look at Sudan, which has seen similar impacts due to the current Sudanese war (2023-).

Purpose of study

The study will be used to understand how resilience is (unequally) distributed amongst the population.

The project will first develop and validate a Digital Resilience in Crisis Indicator (DRCI) in Kuwait, and then Qatar and Sudan, to measure how digitisation supports people to build resilience during crises in areas such as education, employment and social connection.

The DRCI, besides being a novel conceptual and empirical contribution, provides a policy-ready diagnostic tool for governments and institutions to make countries experiencing crisis more resilient in the face of potential future crises by:

  • Identifying of digital resilience gaps in the population.
  • Informing targeted digital interventions.
  • Supporting digitisation for education, employment, and wellbeing continuity during disruptions.
  • Using digital resilience frameworks to enhance public service delivery.

Methods

Kuwait will serve as the primary policy and research case, given its national digital transformation agenda and its Vision 2035 ambition to strengthen its position as a regional financial and commercial hub.

There will be four distinct phases of the project:

  1. The Digital Resilience in Crisis Indicator (DRCI) will be developed, through adaptation and improvement of the questionnaires developed for more general research by previous DiSTO research in countries around the world. See example: Kuwait (2018)
  2. In a two-day workshop, LSE and Kuwaiti experts will train Kuwaiti researchers (MSC/MBA and PhD/Postdocs).
  3. Kuwaiti researchers will conduct a pilot survey using quota sampling to represent diverse groups. This will assess the robustness of the different scales that were designed for the DRCI.
  4. Kuwaiti researchers will conduct cross-context validation, assessing the stability of the measurement model across different countries experiencing crises. Testing the DRCI in Qatar and Sudan will strengthen the indicator's global applicability, validity, reliability, and relevance.

Impact

The project will build academic excellence in Kuwait by training junior researchers and develops local capacity by consulting Kuwaiti policy and industry stakeholders. Using these developments in cross-country comparison will also position Kuwait-based researchers and institutions as leaders in research in this emerging high impact area.