The annual Resilience Alliance (RA) short course, launching in 2021, is a collaboration of the Resilience Alliance network and ResNet (www.nsercresnet.ca). In 2021, the course will be taught online by international experts and attended by post-graduate students (Masters and PhD) and post-doctoral researchers from around the world.

The purpose of this exciting one-week course is to draw on the expertise of scholars in the RA network to teach about resilience as conceptualized and studied by RA scholars and to facilitate collaboration among a broader network of students and researchers. A maximum of 30 participants will be accepted to participate in this course, with 10 places reserved for RAYS (Resilience Alliance Young Scholars) and 10 places for ResNet.

2021 THEME: Resilience Foundations from Theory to Practice
The theme for this first RA short course will be "Resilience Foundations from Theory to Practice". Key concepts including panarchy and the adaptive cycle, scale and system dynamics, social-ecological systems, and resilience assessment will be explored from their roots through to current advances and applications. The evolution of these concepts and key papers will be presented by researchers who have played a role in their development. In collaborative groups, participants will apply resilience concepts to case studies with the goal of developing manuscript drafts and contributing to a library of cases.

FORMAT
The five-day immersive course will take place using a variety of online platforms. The format will include a combination of lectures, group discussions, collaboration space, and both online and offline activities. Participants will meet with instructors in plenary and in small groups for two 90-minute sessions between the hours of 11:00am - 2:00pm EST each day.

LECTURERS
Allyson Quinlan (Convener) - Resilience Alliance, Canada
Craig Allen - University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
Elena Bennett - McGill University, Canada
Reinette Biggs - University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Lance Gunderson - Emory University, USA
Jennifer Hodbod - Michigan State University, USA
Garry Peterson - Stockholm Resilience Center, Sweden
Anne Salomon - Simon Fraser University, Canada
Michael Schoon - Arizona State University, USA

HOW TO APPLY
Post-graduate students (Masters and PhD) and early-career researchers are invited to apply by submitting the following two documents to editor@resalliance.org before February 19, 2021.

A letter (1 page max.) that describes your research activities related to resilience and social-ecological systems and your motivation for participating in this course. Please indicate in your letter if you are a member of the RA or ResNet networks.
A copy of your CV (2 pages max.)

The Resilience Alliance recognizes that diversity is central to strong and innovative teams. We therefore invite applicants to include in their letter of application a brief (1 paragraph) diversity and inclusion statement.

There is no fee to apply. Students accepted for the course will be required to pay a registration fee of $125 USD. A limited number of grants are available to qualifying students who are unable to fund their attendance. Please indicate if you need a grant in your application letter.

MORE INFORMATION

Visit www.resalliance.org/courses for updates

Recently published in the journal Ecosystem Services, the paper describes a framework and process for shedding light on actor's disatisfaction with the type, amount or quality of ecosystem services available to them. Through a combination of a survey and workshop, the authors identify actions that can be taken to address the discrepancies between desired and provided ecosystem services.

Working with local organizations and diverse stakeholders, and deliberately designing a process to enable learning and the co-production of knowledge, the researchers hope that this type of approach can reduce conflict among actors and more generally foster better relationships between people and nature.

Reference:
Hanna, Dalal, D.J. Roux, B. Currie, and E.M. Bennett. 2020. Identifying pathways to reduce discrepancies between desired and provided ecosystem services. Ecosystem Services 43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101119

RA members Dirac Twidwell and Craig Allen are contributing authors on a recent paper in E&S that explores the idea of coerced regimes, that may result from a 'command and control' style of management. The concept of maintaining systems through constant management to support a desirable regime (e.g., in the sense of supplying a flow of goods and services) has been approached from different scientific fields in the past and the authors assert that this new concept of coerced regimes "motivates discussions about what we know and envision versus what we do not know and therefore cannot envision". This line of research helps direct attention at social dynamics as part of the feedbacks of managed social-ecological systems.

Reference:

Angeler, D. G., B. C. Chaffin, S. M. Sundstrom, A. Garmestani, K. L. Pope, D. Uden, D. Twidwell, and C. R. Allen. 2020. Coerced regimes: management challenges in the Anthropocene. Ecology and Society 25(1):4.
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11286-250104

Understanding tipping points and the potential transition pathways they create is challenging because of the non-linear interactions of social and ecological systems.

In a new paper by J.D. Mathias & colleagues, the authors analyze the potential effect of tipping points on transition pathways using a stylized model composed of agents exploiting resources in an ecosystem and interacting with other agents.

The researcher's model suggests people's perceptions of an ecosystem's state interacts in complex ways with how resources are exploited, sometimes leading to counter-intuitive outcomes.

The study highlights the complexity of managing long-term and short-term benefits and how understanding social-ecological interactions is critical to identifying sustainable transition pathways.

Reference:

Mathias, J.D., J.M. Anderies, J. Baggio, J. Hodbod, S. Huet, M.A. Janssen, M. Milkoreit, and M. Schoon. 2020. Exploring non-linear transition pathways in social-ecological systems. Scientific Reports 10:4136. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59713-w

SES research is a rapdily growing field that uses multiple methods, which can make it challenging for those entering the field to know where to start. A comprehensive review that focuses on SES as complex adaptive systems reveals a significant increase in SES research over the past three decades and also describes and organizes into categories the main types of methods being used (311 methods from an initial 632, grouped into a manageable 27 categories).

The authors also note the key role that the journal Ecology and Society continues to play in the development of this field, as the first open access, online journal in the SES field.

"Our timeline analysis shows the most significant inflection point in the rise of SES research to lie between 1999 and 2000, which coincides with the establishment of the Resilience Alliance in 1999 (Folke 2006, Parker and Hackett 2012), and the initial publication of their affiliate journal Ecology and Society, which has published more SES research than any other journal."

In addition to providing some welcome guidance to the abundance of methods commonly used in SES research, the authors note how the key words identified in their study reveal "a focus of SES research on pressing sustainability issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, livelihoods, poverty, policy, land use change, water, and social and environmental justice" and advances how SES research is defined and practiced.

De Vos, A., R. Biggs, and R. Preiser. 2019. Methods for understanding social-ecological systems: a review of place-based studies. Ecology and Society 24(4):16.
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11236-240416