MISTRA (the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research) is the funding agency behind the centre. The signed agreement between the parties runs from January 2007 to December 2013, with possible extension to 2018. The allocated amount from MISTRA for the first part is SEK 105 million and the possible five year extension about SEK 20 million per year.Stockholm Resilience Centre is governed by an international board, responsible for the strategic direction of the Institute, the scientific and outreach achievements, the organizational structure and development, and the financial performance. There are currently twelve board members.
A joint initiative
The mission of the Stockholm Resilience Centre is to advance the understanding of complex social-ecological systems, and generate new and elaborated insights and means for the development of management and governance practices.
The centre is a joint initiative between Stockholm University, the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics at The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
There is no intention to fully merge the three Stockholm Resilience Centre partners, but to keep identity, and create constructive collaborations and synergies that will benefit all.
The interest from the international research community is strong, many international research activities have been initiated, people are recruited and significant policy processes are in place.
Research agenda
The research agenda is currently organized in nine interacting clusters/themes. The themes have collaborative leadership and serve as dynamic platforms for collaboration:
Understanding ecosystem dynamics for the generation of ecosystem services in social-ecological systems
The new economics of complex social-ecological systems
Multilevel institutions and governance of social-ecological systems
Adaptive governance of dynamic land- and seascapes
Knowledge management, learning and social networks in social-ecological systems
Regime shifts, scales and sources of reorganisation in social-ecological systems
Governing freshwater for food and ecosystem services
Governance and ecosystem management of coastal and marine systems
Urban social-ecological systems and globalization
Innovative research and communication
New and innovative solutions for governance and management are envisioned to emerge. International research collaboration will be substantial with joint projects, joint positions, workshops etc. with internationally renowned research groups, centers and alliances worldwide, and feed into the Swedish University system.
A current example is the Resilience 2008 conference in Stockholm in April 2008.
Another important part of the centre is outreach, which we define in a broad sense, i.e. the whole process of bridging science to society. It is our vision of building the new centre in joint collaboration to also become an important actor on the global policy arena.
