Starting with the question: ‘To what extent are human societies adapting their capacity for learning and foresight to deal with new global challenges?’, the Resilience 2008 conference, the first major event focused on the notion resilience, aimed to be a space for bringing together scientists and professionals working with the complex dynamics of interconnected social-ecological systems. The Conference also aimed to present, discuss, and if possible, summarise the current understanding of resilience, adaptability and pathways of transformation in such systems.

Celebrated in the city of Stockholm, from the 14th – 17th of April, the Resilience 2008 conference was organised by the Resilience Alliance, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science and the International Council for Science (ICSU). The local organisers were the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics. The Conference was attended by 557 participants from 46 countries (see Box 1), including scientists, practitioners and managers, as well as representatives from government, business and other major actors. The goal was to discuss the challenges facing societal development, and together with scientists propose directions to go and pathways to avoid.

The scientific programme included, on the first day, a welcome address by Brian Walker and a plenary conference; ‘Fundamental science, uncertainty application, and innovative organizations” by Buzz Holling, the Canadian professor known as the ‘father of the ecological resilience theory’. On the following two days, keynote speakers were: Elinor Ostrom: “Updating the design principles for robust resource institutions’ (Tuesday 15th), and Steve Carpenter; “Scenarios: imagination for transformation” (Wednesday 16th). In addition, the Conference programme included plenary sessions with eminent speakers, such as: Carl Folke, Katrina Brown, Will Steffen, Neil Adger, Eric Lambin, and Marten Scheffen. The Scientific programme also included the following overall themes (and sub-themes), which were developed and presented in the different plenary sessions taking place in the different Conference venues from Monday 14th to Wednesday 16th (2).

1. Resilience, global change, and globalization (drivers of change; management of resilience; shocks and social-ecological security).
2. Traps, regime shifts and transformations (collapse and renewal; poverty traps and critical transitions; tipping points).
3. Adaptations and sources of resilience for dealing with change (resilience challenges of vulnerable peoples and places; sources for adaptation and transformation; practice and policy of social-ecological resilience).
4. Knowledge management and social-ecological learning (social learning and transition arenas; new modes of knowledge production; future scenarios, and models).
5. Adaptive governance and multilevel challenges (adaptive management; social networks; evolution of norms, multilevel institutions; governing complexity).
6. Complex systems, resource management and economic development (biodiversity and human wellbeing; regime shifts and changes in ecosystem services; complexity, spatial dynamics and economic policy).

The Resilience 2008 conference also focused on the following thematic areas:

7. Urban social-ecological system challenges.
8. Freshwater, food and ecosystem services in production landscapes.
9. Coastal and marine social-ecological challenges.

In addition to the morning plenaries and parallel sessions in the evenings, the Resilience 2008 conference stood out as a ‘smorgasbord’ of different activities, including a science fair with working groups, poster pubs, speed talks, speakers corners, and musical performances. Activities also included the Resilience Art Exhibition at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, a house warming party for the Stockholm Resilience Centre, which recently opened on January 1st 2007, and a concert and conference dinner at Hotel Rival located in the centre of Stockholm. On the last day, after the last morning sessions were carried out, the conclusions panel: ‘Sustainability revisited – learning from the past, facing the future’ was chaired by Uno Svedin, International Director at Swedish research Council FORMAS, and commented by relevant participants such as Elinor Ostrom and Buzz Holling, The conclusions panel had the aim to summarized findings and knowledge about resilience, adaptive capacity, sustainability and other related topics.

Personal View: Diversity in the Resilience 2008 conference There is no doubt that the Resilience 2008 conference was an effective platform for launching various initiatives and for networking with an internationally diverse range of people and research institutions. The Conference united around 600 people, including researchers, practitioners and policy-makers. In spite of this outstanding audience, it is suggested that additional efforts should be taken to include broader perspectives and approaches from people and societies from developing countries into resilience research. For instance, it seems significant that 62% of the Conference participants came from four countries (Canada, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States); of which, 76% came just from Sweden and the USA (1). These figures could represent an inequality in the integration and diversity of ideas, experiences, and lessons taken from different geographical regions. Achieving a more representative participation is necessary for making resilience a powerful framework for strengthening the adaptation capacity of diverse Social-Economic Systems to current environmental change -Ana Pena del Valle

Moreover, two more events took place after the Resilience 2008 conference. The first one was a Policy Dialogue, which was conceived as an opportunity to discuss the outcomes of the conference and to identify important challenges for policy makers and business. The agenda for that day comprised five thematic workshops with conference participants on the following topics: 1) People’s management of ecosystems and resources: lessons for governance and resilience 2) Achieving resilience in rural areas for securing food, freshwater, livelihoods and biodiversity 3) Resilience in coastal and marine systems 4) Achieving sustainability in urban systems and 5) Resilience Alliance Partners programme for policy and management. In the same spirit, there were a number of parallel ‘speed dating sessions’ through which researchers practiced communicating the resilience perspective to colleagues. The aim of these ‘exercises’ was to get practice for making complex issues more policy and management-relevant. The other event was a Student-led Resilience Workshop: ‘Realise, Reorganise, Adapt - Reorganising knowledge for sustainability’, which was though to address questions related to resilience knowledge as a framework for sustainability, or as a tool for organising interdisciplinary research; and also to build an international student network of resilience researchers (3).

Although a further Resilience conference was not yet announced, we are confident that this event will continue to be celebrated in the forthcoming years. The need for a more comprehensive framework for action and for the understanding of causes and processes of vulnerability and resilience requires diverse perspectives, emphasizing the heterogeneity of opportunities and potentialities linked to peoples’ adaptability in the various regions of the world.

Website: http://resilience2008.org/resilience/?page=php/main

Notes:

(1) Data provided by the Resilience 2008 conference organisers.
(2) Detail of venues and scientific programme can be consulted in the Resilience 2008 conference: http://resilience2008.org.
(3) Further outcomes from the student-led workshop could be shared in the Resilience Science blog: http://rs.resalliance.org/2008/04/10/student-led-resilience-workshop-at-resilience-2008/.

Note: Article content reflects the authors opinion and does not necessarily represent that of IHDP and its affiliates