Lately resilience has become a “buzz” word in social science and inspires many researchers and practitioners. In the past theoretical concepts and studies in the frame of mitigation research have primarily focused on approaches addressing risk and vulnerability of people and social-ecological systems. Only lately the conceptualization was broadened towards a positive and prospective approach – resilience. This approach focuses on analyzing the ability of people and social-ecological systems to positively adjust to change, risk and adversity. The resilience concept looks into both reactive capabilities of people to cope with, recover from and adjust to various risk and adversities and their proactive capacity to create options and anticipate responses to health risks and adversities.

The NCCR funded project ‘From Social Vulnerability to Resilience’ encloses the following projects:

1. Governance issues concerning the management of natural hazards in cities in Bolivia
2. Livelihood, gender and migration in Pakistan
3. Access and innovative management to foster health in Tanzania
4. The development of methodological approaches to human-environment systems