News > Literature on the resilience of complex systems is complex

Steven Lade and Garry Peterson comment on a recent literature review that found the literature on resilience of complex systems to be highly compartmentalized.

In their letter to the editor, researchers Steven Lade and Garry Peterson demonstrate how search terms and disciplinary blinders can skew results when looking across fields at the literature on the resilience of complex systems.

With the variety of ways in which researchers in different disciplines describe, define, and conceptualize resilience and complex systems, it appears that a comprehensive literature search demands a variety of terms be included in the search. In response to a narrow search on ISI Web of Knowledge that limited the selection of literature on the topic, Lade and Peterson show how key papers can be excluded thus giving an incomplete picture on the state of science.

Read the full letter to the editor here.

Lade, L.J. and G.D. Peterson. 2019. Comment on "Resilience of Complex Systems: State of the Art and Directions for Future Research". Complexity. Article ID 6343545. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/63435445.