Resilience

What can RESILIENCE mean in the context of SMART GRIDS TRANSITIONS - INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE requires a transparency regarding the conceptual background.

Differences and similarities that should be highlighted btw Social Resilience, which is the relevant concept related to INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE and earlier concepts: It is NOT about bouncing back to an equilibrium, rather bouncing forward. Emphasis is on agile and transformative action and interventions, less on adaptation and not on absorption.

[Source: European Commission. Joint Research Centre., 2017. Building a scientific narrative towards a more resilient EU society. Part 1, A conceptual framework. Publications Office, LU.]

“Resilience is the ability not only to withstand and cope with challenges but also to undergo transitions in a sustainable, fair, and democratic manner. Resilience is necessary in all policy areas to undergo the green and digital transitions, while maintaining the EU’s core purpose and integrity in a dynamic and at times turbulent environment. A more resilient Europe will recover faster, emerge stronger from current and future crises, and better implement the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.”

“The framework for resilience has five main ingredients, which are elaborated in more detail in the coming sections.

First, it is individual centric and takes the societal perspective. In particular, the final goal of resilience is functional to societal and individual wellbeing, and the main contributors to resilience are individuals, with all of their interactions, social ties and power structures.

Second, it takes a dynamic perspective. Shocks can differ in their chronicity and intensity, which influences the relative importance of stability versus flexibility (the absorptive, adaptive and transformative capacities). Moreover, during the dynamic response to shocks, it might happen that there is a change in the most relevant capacity, in the most affected entities, or both at the same time.

Third, it emphasizes interactions, feedbacks and possible nonlinearities among various entities and layers of the system. This “system view” helps understanding how shocks spread among the different segments of the system, how they interact with each other and with the actors, and based on all these, where to intervene. This also serves as a call to break the silos in policy making.

Fourth, interventions may contribute actively to the resilience of the overall system, by enhancing the entities’ own abilities to cope with disturbances. This could mean helping entities to invoke the necessary capacities (e.g. incentivizing people to accumulate savings to cope with a potential job loss), or support these capacities directly (e.g. unemployment benefits). Interventions may need to vary with individuals and change in time.

Fifth, a crucial aspect is to be able to “bounce forward” (instead of “bouncing back”), to learn from past difficulties, and come out stronger from a witnessed storm. This means being able to use shocks as windows of opportunities, and thus translate the negative narrative of a “stormy future” into a positive one.”

[European Commission. Joint Research Centre. Building a Scientific Narrative towards a More Resilient EU Society. Part 1, A Conceptual Framework. LU: Publications Office, 2017. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/635528.]

“The transformative resilience is the means of learning from past events and engineering changes ideally to a better condition given the current constraints. Such a shift of the status quo is nevertheless difficult. Moreover, learning from past or current disturbances is the opportunity to handle better future crisis (the steeling effect put forward by Rutter (2012)). Since the ultimate goal is to maximize societal wellbeing, any distress, no matter how painful, is also the mean for improvement in managing future disturbances. This is a continuous process, where ex-post and ex ante evaluations follow each other in a circular fashion.” (p.8) [European Commission. Joint Research Centre. Building a Scientific Narrative towards a More Resilient EU Society. Part 1, A Conceptual Framework. LU: Publications Office, 2017. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/635528.] Social Resilience - Capacities and Interventions [EC JRC, 2017]

[Source: European Commission. Joint Research Centre., 2017. Building a scientific narrative towards a more resilient EU society. Part 1, A conceptual framework. Publications Office, LU.]

In the context of ISGAN WG7, Resilienc of the energy system refers to resilience of the “engine” for wellbeing (in the figure below) as INSTITUTIONS, PRODUCTION Process, CONSUMPTION, INVESTMENT, WASTE. It also refers to Socio-System SERVICES.

[Source: European Commission. Joint Research Centre., 2017. Building a scientific narrative towards a more resilient EU society. Part 1, A conceptual framework. Publications Office, LU.]

“In a nutshell, resilience thinking focuses on three aspects of social–ecological systems (SES): resilience as persistence, adaptability and transformability.

Resilience is the tendency of a SES subject to change to remain within a stability domain, continually changing and adapting yet remaining within critical thresholds. Adaptability is a part of resilience. Adaptability is the capacity of a SES to adjust its responses to changing external drivers and internal processes and thereby allow for development within the current stability domain, along the current trajectory. Transformability is the capacity to create new stability domains for development, a new stability landscape, and cross thresholds into a new development trajectory.

Deliberate transformation requires resilience thinking, first in assessing the relative merits of the current versus alternative, potentially more favorable stability domains, and second in fostering resilience of the new development trajectory, the new basin of attraction.

Transformations do not take place in a vacuum, but draw on resilience from multiple scales, making use of crises as windows of opportunity, and recombining sources of experience and knowledge to navigate social–ecological transitions from a regime in one stability landscape to another.

Transformation involves novelty and innovation. Transformational change at smaller scales enables resilience at larger scales, while the capacity to transform at smaller scales draws on resilience at other scales. Thus, deliberate transformation involves breaking down the resilience of the old and building the resilience of the new. As the Earth System approaches or exceeds thresholds that might precipitate a forced transformation to some state outside its Holocene stability domain, society must seriously consider ways to foster more flexible systems that contribute to Earth System resilience and to explore options for the deliberate transformation of systems that threaten Earth System resilience.”

[Source: Folke, Carl, Stephen R. Carpenter, Brian Walker, Marten Scheffer, Terry Chapin, and Johan Rockström. ‘Resilience Thinking: Integrating Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability’. Ecology and Society 15, no. 4 (2010): art20. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03610-150420. ]

critical_infrastructure

A “resilience network” typically refers to a collaborative or interconnected system of organizations, individuals, and resources that work together to enhance resilience in the face of various challenges, such as disasters, emergencies, or other adverse events. Resilience networks are designed to improve a community's or an organization's ability to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and adapt to disruptions or crises.

Key characteristics of a resilience network may include:

1. Collaboration: Resilience networks involve different stakeholders, including government agencies, non-profit organizations, businesses, community groups, and individuals, working together to achieve common resilience goals. Collaboration fosters the sharing of resources, information, and expertise.

2. Information Sharing: Information is a critical component of resilience. Resilience networks often prioritize the sharing of information related to risks, vulnerabilities, and response strategies. This can include early warning systems, real-time data sharing, and communication plans.

3. Resource Mobilization: Networks can pool resources, both financial and logistical, to improve preparedness and response efforts. This might involve sharing equipment, personnel, or funding during a crisis.

4. Coordination: Effective coordination and communication within the network are essential for a timely and efficient response. Coordination mechanisms help prevent duplication of efforts and ensure that resources are deployed where they are most needed.

5. Flexibility and Adaptability: Resilience networks are designed to be flexible and adaptable, capable of responding to evolving threats and changing circumstances. They can adjust their strategies and plans as new information becomes available.

6. Community Engagement: Engaging the local community is often a central aspect of resilience networks. Empowering community members and involving them in decision-making processes can enhance overall resilience.

7. Multidisciplinary Approach: Resilience networks often involve stakeholders with diverse skills, expertise, and backgrounds. This multidisciplinary approach can provide a holistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities for resilience.

Resilience networks can take various forms, depending on the specific context and goals. They are commonly found in disaster management, public health, climate adaptation, and other fields where the ability to withstand and recover from adverse events is a priority.

In essence, resilience networks leverage the strengths and resources of multiple entities to create a more robust and adaptive system for dealing with challenges, with the ultimate goal of enhancing the resilience of communities, organizations, and societies as a whole.

~~DISCUSSION|Discussion Section - PAGE OWNER: Klaus Kubeczko~~