Gunnar Öquist, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Kåre Bremer, Vice Chancellor at Stockholm University and Thomas Rosswall, Director of the International Council for Science held the opening speeches after a welcome address by Carl Folke, science director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and head of the steering commité of Resilience 2008.

- A knowledgeable society
Describing the current way forward as unsustainable, Öquist emphasized the importance of creating a more knowledgeable society with increased knowledge of social-ecological interactions.

- This conference is a world manifestation of resilience research and we need a scientific renewal of research where new discoveries are based on a free exchange of ideas and thoughts, he said.

- Pleased and proud
Thomas Rosswall and Kåre Bremer independently endorsed and praised the work that has already sprung out from the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

- I am very proud of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the tremendous amount of people who are already working with resilience thinking. This conference is a testament to all this work, Bremer said.

Holling on the inception of resilience thinking
Buzz Holling, considered the father of resilience thinking, gave an introduction to how the concepts of resilience and adaptive governance developed and took the audience on a journey through his 50 year long environmental research.

Starting from early cold war networking at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, Holling highlighted the innovation and transdisciplinary work that has led to key books like Panarchy and the development of the Resilience Centre and the Resilience Alliance.

The Resilience 2008 Conference gathers some 600 scientists, policy makers and business representatives from around the world who will discuss ecology, economy and society from a resilience perspective.