For much of the past two decades, the task facing trustees and investment teams of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes was clear: repair deficits, manage risk and achieve funding stability.

That discipline remains vital. But the world pension schemes now operate in has changed fundamentally, and so too must the way we think about investment strategy.

The defining challenge today is not risk in the traditional sense. Risk can be modelled, hedged and priced. What schemes increasingly face instead is uncertainty: events that are difficult to predict, often interconnected, and capable of reshaping markets at speed.

Geopolitical conflict, inflation shocks, technological disruption, energy security, demographic change and climate risk…