Professor Elinor Ostrom from Indiana University and Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, Arizona State University: "Resilient Social-Ecological Systems: How Do We Achieve Them?"
See the Elinor Ostrom seminar here
Professor Brian Walker from the Resilience Alliance and CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems (Australia): "Evolution of Resilience — In Theory, and in Social-Ecological Systems".
Professor Frances Westley at University of Wisconsin and member of the Stockholm Resilience Board, expressed a slight envy over the fact that a similar centre still has not been realised in the United States. Anders Wijkman, member of the European Parliament, spoke of the strategic importance the centre will play in political decision-making processes.
Through world-leading research, Stockholm Resilience Centre aims to advance the understanding of complex social-ecological systems and generate means for the development of governance and management practices in relation to long-term sustainability.
Scientifically based facts
The centre will cater for better dialogue between policy makers and scientists on local, national and international level.
The ambition of the centre is to provide grounds for a new direction within sustainable governance.
- We hope to generate the insights that are needed to strengthen societies´ and the ecosystems´ capacities to meet a world which spins faster and faster, says Carl Folke, Science Director of Stockholm Resilience Centre.
30 million dollar total investment
Stockholm Resilience Centre is the result of an initiative by the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA) to build a world leading research centre that will take the interdisciplinary research on linked ecological and social systems significant steps forward.
Mistra´s grant of 22 million Euros in total (approximate 30 million USD) will be distributed over a period of 12 years: 2.7 million Euros during a three year start-up phase (2007-2009), and then 8.7 million Euros during the coming four years (2010-2013).
After that, an evaluation will be conducted before the remaining 11 million Euros are handed out. All in all, the Institute´s yearly budget is expected to be 4.8 million Euros once it is up and running.
Stockholm Resilience Centre is a joint initiative between the Stockholm University, the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Its vision is to enhance human well-being and the capacity to deal with complexity and change, for the sustainable co-evolution of human civilizations with the biosphere.
