Established: | 1 January 2007 |
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Address: | Stockholm Resilience Centre
Stockholm University SE-106 91 Stockholm |
Website: | http://www.stockholmresilience.org/ |
Executive director: | Johan Rockström |
Scientific director: | Carl Folke |
The Stockholm Resilience Centre is an international research centre at Stockholm University that focuses on the resilience of social-ecological systems.
The centre is a transdisciplinary initiative between Stockholm University, the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics at The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It also offers two Masters programmes and has its own Resilience school which is a collaboration between the centre and several departments at Stockholm University. The Baltic Nest Institute (BNI) and the environmental communications NGO, Albaeco, is also located at the centre.
Stockholm Resilience Centre organizes its work around 10 research themes:
Contents |
Social-ecological resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to cope with perturbations such as climate change or economic shocks and to rebuild and continue to develop itself. Loss of ecosystem resilience can lead to the consequent loss of valuable ecosystem services, which in turn may lead to rapid and dramatic transitions or shifts in for instance people, ecosystems, knowledge systems, or whole cultures.
The resilience approach is closely linked to the aspect of change, be it gradual or sudden. When change is gradual, things move forward in a more continuous and predictable way. When change is sudden, it is simultaneously disorganizing and turbulent, something which is reflected in for instance climate impacts. There is evidence (what evidence?) that periods of abrupt change are likely to increase in frequency and magnitude which in turn challenges the adaptive capacity of societies.