Resilience has become a fashionable buzzword in recent years. The term is frequently found in many different discourses ranging from nature conservation (WWF’s adaptation and resilience program), sports psychology (teaching athletes about resilience), to development work (resilience in rural areas). It appears that everything (cities, companies, software) and everybody (managers, children, teachers) can and should be resilient. With our current knowledge of future challenges like climate change, globalisation and food security resilience can offer a way to develop strategies to cope with uncertainties.

The Dutch Open University organises a 2-days symposium on learning and innovations in resilient systems, on 23rd and 24th March 2017, in Heerlen, the Netherlands. The symposium offers an unique opportunity to discuss these topics, in an interdisciplinary environment. Focusing on (i) information and computer systems, (ii) organizational and management systems, and (iii) environmental systems.

We invite scientists from all disciplines to debate how and to what extent innovations and learning processes in various systems contribute to the transition towards (more) resilient systems, be it individuals, organisations, et cetera. We welcome theoretical papers, methodological papers, and empirical studies or combinations thereof; and invite abstracts that discuss and examine innovations and learning for resilience from various angles.

We are delighted that we can announce the following keynote speakers that will contribute to the symposium:

  • Prof. Dr. Ir. Carl Folke, Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
  • Prof. Dr. Ir. Petra de Weerd-Nederhof, University of Twente
  • Prof. Dr. Ir. Yasmin Merali, University of Hull
  • Prof. Dr. Ir. Bart Jacobs, Radboud University Nijmegen

Practicalities and submission deadlines:

Interested participants/authors are encouraged to submit 250 word abstracts by 15th October 2016 as a first step towards full paper development. Please send your abstract to program.resilient2017@ou.nl.

Authors will be notified of acceptance/rejection by 15th December 2016; contributing authors are expected to submit a full first draft of their paper by 1st February 2017.

Finally, more information can be found on our website:

https://www.ou.nl/web/learning-and-innovations-in-resilient-systems