Resilience Science Must-Knows

The report outlines nine fundamental principles of resilience science designed for decision-makers. It defines resilience as the capacity to cope, adapt, and transform, emphasizing that it is an active process rather than a passive state. Key themes include the necessity of diversity, the role of social and ecological relationships, the importance of managing trade-offs through collaborative governance, and the requirement to address power imbalances to ensure equitable outcomes. The document argues that proactive investment in resilience provides a 'triple dividend' by avoiding losses, stimulating economic growth, and delivering social and environmental benefits.

• Resilience is defined as the ability to live and develop with change and uncertainty, encompassing the capacities to cope, adapt, and transform rather than simply 'bouncing back'.
• The Earth's resilience is currently under severe strain, with seven of the nine planetary boundaries already breached, pushing critical systems like forests, oceans, and ice sheets toward irreversible tipping points.
• Resilience consists of three core capacities: coping (withstanding shocks without major disruption), adapting (adjusting to new conditions while maintaining core functions), and transforming (fundamentally redesigning systems to move away from unsustainable trajectories).
• Proactive investment in resilience generates a 'triple dividend': it reduces the cost of disruptive events, stimulates economic growth by lowering risk, and provides social and environmental benefits such as improved public health and increased biodiversity.
• Resilience is a continuous process involving a cycle of rapid change (where crises act as catalysts for innovation) and gradual change (where innovations are scaled and institutionalized), though the latter can lead to rigidity and 'lock-in'.
• Diversity is a fundamental requirement for resilience, spanning functional, capital, social, and cognitive forms; it provides the flexibility to pursue multiple pathways and the novelty required for innovation.
• Strong social and ecological relationships are essential for resilience, though 'hyperconnectivity'—such as global trade infrastructures—can create new risks by allowing shocks to cascade across borders.
• Effective resilience governance requires collaborative, polycentric, and adaptive approaches to negotiate the inevitable trade-offs that occur when decisions in one area impact others across different scales and generations.
• Agency—the capacity to make and act on decisions—is critical for activating resilience, but it must be supported through structural changes and policies that ensure equitable access to resources.
• Equitable resilience requires addressing historical injustices, power imbalances, and social inequalities to prevent resilience interventions from reinforcing the systems that cause vulnerability.

APA

A., N., C., Q., M., N., A., J.-A., A., J., A., M., N., M., G., P., M., B., C., B., R., B., E., B., W., B., K., B., S.R., C., G., C., C., D. C., F., D., R., F., ... G., Z. (2025). Resilience Science Must-Knows. Global Resilience Partnership. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/rsmk_eng_digital.pdf

Chicago

A., Norström, Queiroz C., Nyström M., Jiménez-Aceituno A., Jonsson A., McFadden A., Milton N., et al. Resilience Science Must-Knows. Global Resilience Partnership, 2025. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/rsmk_eng_digital.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{a2025resilience, author = {A., Norström and C., Queiroz and M., Nyström and A., Jiménez-Aceituno and A., Jonsson and A., McFadden and N., Milton and G., Peterson and M., Barnes and C., Béné and R., Biggs and E., Boyd and W., Broadgate and K., Brown and S.R., Carpenter and G., Collins and C., de Coning and F., Denton and R., Ferreira and C., Folke and L., Gordon and M., Hamann and J., Hornberg and T., McPhearson and H., Nagendra and C., Ringler and J., Rockström and P., Romero-Lankao and M., Scheffer and F., Westley and G., Ziervogel}, title = {{Resilience Science Must-Knows}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, year = {2025}, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/rsmk_eng_digital.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }