Resilience thinking has frequently been proposed as an alternative to conventional natural resource management, but there are few studies of its applications in real-world settings. To address this gap, we synthesized experiences from practitioners that have applied a resilience thinking approach to strategic planning, called Resilience Planning, in regional natural resource management organizations in Australia. This case represents one of the most extensive and long-term applications of resilience thinking in the world today. We conducted semi-structured interviews with Resilience Planning practitioners from nine organizations and reviewed strategic planning documents to investigate: 1) the key contributions of the approach to their existing strategic planning, and 2) what enabled and hindered the practitioners in applying and embedding the new approach in their organizations. Our results reveal that Resilience Planning contributed to developing a social-ecological systems perspective, more adaptive and collaborative approaches to planning, and that it clarified management goals of desirable resource conditions. Applying Resilience Planning required translating resilience thinking to practice in each unique circumstance, while simultaneously creating support among staff, and engaging external actors. Embedding Resilience Planning within organizations implied starting and maintaining longer-term change processes that required sustained multi-level organizational support. We conclude by identifying four lessons for successfully applying and embedding resilience practice in an organization: 1) to connect internal "entrepreneurs" to "interpreters" and "networkers" who work across organizations, 2) to assess the opportunity context for resilience practice, 3) to ensure that resilience practice is a learning process that engages internal and external actors, and 4) to develop reflective strategies for managing complexity and uncertainty.
ABSTRACT. Cities and towns have become increasingly interested in building resilience to cope with surprises, however, how to do this is often unclear. We evaluated the ability of the Resilience Assessment Workbook to help urban areas incorporate resilience thinking into their planning practice by exploring how a resilience assessment process complemented existing planning in the local government of Eskilstuna, Sweden. We conducted this evaluation using participant observation, semistructured interviews, and a survey of the participants. Our findings show that the resilience assessment contributed to ongoing planning practices by addressing sustainability challenges that were not being addressed within the normal municipal planning or operations, such as local food security. It bridged longer term sustainable development and shorter term crisis management, allowing these two sectors to develop common strategies. Our study also highlighted that the Resilience Assessment Workbook could be made more useful by providing more guidance on how to practically deal with thresholds and trade-offs across scales, as well as on how to manage transdisciplinary learning processes. This is the first in-depth study of a resilience assessment process, and it demonstrates that the Resilience Assessment Workbook is useful for planning and that it merits further research and development.
Transdisciplinary research that bridges science and society is needed to address the complex social-ecological sustainability challenges we are facing. However, many transdisciplinary researchers grapple with balancing the competing demands of scientific rigour and excellence, societal impact and engagement, and self-care. This is especially evident in the growing literature by early-career researchers describing the challenges of pursuing a transdisciplinary research career in social-ecological sustainability research. To guide discussion and reflection towards a flourishing transdisciplinary research practice, we synthesized our own and other researchers' experiences of using a transdisciplinary approach and formulated the heuristic of the 'Triple-S': caring for Science, Society and Self. This heuristic adds the frequently overlooked personal aspects of transdisciplinary research. Current dominant academic structures, cultures and metrics of success are not supporting a balanced and flourishing transdisciplinary research practice, but rather creating and exacerbating the tradeoffs between these three aspects. As an example of a solutions-oriented approach, we developed a theory of change to address the changes we see are necessary to enable a transdisciplinary research practice in line with the Triple-S. We hope that this will foster academic environments where transdisciplinary research practice can flourish and the next generation of researchers are not burnt-out, but empowered.
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