Systemic risks like climate change, cybersecurity and pandemics are characterized by high complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity, and effects beyond the system in which they originate. That's why novel research approaches and regulatory measures are indispensable for the evaluation and management of these risks. An interdisciplinary team recently published a paper on this subject, which appears as the first article in a special issue of the journal Risk Analysis, edited by Ortwin Renn and Pia-Johanna Schweizer from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies.