Buzz Holling, considered the father of resilience thinking, called for freedom and flexibility in order to generate multilevel change and novelty thinking. This is needed in a time when several crises are emerging, he said.

- This year a cluster of predicted crises have become aware to the public, such as the rise of food prices due to energy market changes and the collapse of the financial market. We see that small instabilities and risks spread to practically all developed countries in the world. However, globalisation also adds a great positive value because the individual or small groups can have an increasingly global effect, Holling said.

Resilience as an continuance of sustainability thinking
Sverker Sörlin and Carole Crumley both argued that we have moved beyond traditional discussions around sustainability and that resilience thinking is increasingly being embraced as an integrated part of sustainable development thinking.

- Resilience thinking will not replace the sustainability discourse, but we can use resilience to develop sustainability further, Sörlin said. He was followed up by Line Gordon who noted that the key approach with resilience thinking is that although we might have solutions for sustainable development, we will face challenges and we must be prepared for surprises.

"One and one is more than two"
Both Holling and Ostrom praised the quality of the conference and the way art, music and science merged together.

- We have seen some stunning presentations both in quality and range of thought that will generate new ideas. In addition, we have seen how arts, science and music combined together indicate how different human endeavours can interact, Buzz Holling said.

Using the Tuesday concert with Marten Scheffer as an example, Ostrom echoed Holling's comments and stated there is a lot that can be learned from the interaction between humans and instruments.

- We didn't just see five people playing, it was much more than that. We saw five people that worked together and through the use of instruments, notes, great leadership, hard work, adaptation and experimentation they created a human collective action where the five individuals together become something bigger, she said.