The National Preparedness Commission was established in late 2020 to bring together senior figures from public life, business, academia and civil society with the mission of promoting better preparedness in the UK for a major crisis or incident. The Commission has been set up to make a difference. The quality of the work produced, combined with the status and experience of its 45 commissioners, ensures that its recommendations will have an audience of policy-makers and decision-takers, both at national and local level as well as in the business and community sectors. The Commission’s programme of work is intended to be both strategic (recognising that what is needed to be better prepared for many disruptions is the same whatever the initiating cause), and practical (to encourage comprehensive actions so as to get away from merely ‘admiring the problem’). The Commission recognises that the increasing complexity of society and its systems brings many benefits, but potentially creates its own fragilities. Above all, the Commission looks systemically at what needs to be done to improve societal preparedness and national resilience.