Established in 1999, the Resilience Alliance is an international, multidisciplinary research organization that explores the dynamics of social-ecological systems. RA members collaborate across disciplines to advance the understanding and practical application of resilience, adaptive capacity, and transformation of societies and ecosystems in order to cope with change and support human well-being.
The RA distinguishes itself in its capacity for comparative research and synthesis at a global scale, rooted in local and regional context-specific studies. RA research aligns with the current strategic direction of global policy fora and serves as a resource for other organizations and programs around the world. RA members have served in leadership positions on a variety of international projects (e.g., International Panel on Climate Change, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and Future Earth). In addition to coordinating research activities among members through working groups and an annual science meeting, the RA co-hosts a resilience conference every three years.
Our organizational approach involves three complementary strategies: I) contributing toward theoretical advances in the dynamics of complex adaptive systems, II) rigorous testing of theory through a variety of means, including: participatory approaches to regional case-studies, adaptive management applications, model development, and the use of scenarios and other visioning tools, and III) developing guidelines and principles that will enable others to assess the resilience of coupled human-natural systems and develop policy and management tools that support sustainable development.