Stockholm University VC Kåre Bremer (left) with Executive Director Johan Rockström and Science Director Carl Folke (right) during the centre inauguration May 29, 2006. Photo: J. Lundberg
Centre background
On May 29 2007, Stockholm Resilience Centre was launched and with that came the opening of one of the most influential international centres on sustainable governance and management.
Unique research enivornment
Stockholm Resilience Centre aims to be a unique transdisciplinary research environment where innovative ideas can flourish.
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.

Sturle Hauge Simonsen
Date: 2008-01-14
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Postal address: Stockholm Resilience Centre
Stockholm University
SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: +46 8 674 78 00
Fax: +46 8 674 70 20
E-mail: info@stockholmresilience.su.se
Visiting/delivery address: Stockholm Resilience Centre
Stockholm University
Kräftriket 2B (2C for delivery of large goods)