1247729 (Crittenden). This award provides partial financial support for the participation of U.S. scientists and engineers in the Symposium on Resilience and Sustainability that is being organized by faculty at Ohio State University, Portland State University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Oberlin College in collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The symposium will be held on Monday, January 14, 2013 in conjunction with the National Council for Science and Environment (NCSE) annual conference on January 15-17, 2013, which has an overall theme of ?Environmental Disasters, Science Preparedness and Resilience.? Highlights of the symposium results will be presented in a plenary session at the NCSE conference. The purpose of this symposium is to convene researchers and practitioners from a variety of fields that are investigating the modeling, assessment, and improvement of resilience in economic, social, and ecological systems. By stimulating trans-disciplinary thinking and collaboration, the symposium aims to (a) develop a more integrated understanding of common principles of resilient and sustainable systems, and (b) identify useful approaches or tools for enhancing the resilience, sustainability, and productive harmony of human and natural systems. This symposium will contribute to the understanding that ecological insights and systems thinking can help human enterprises and communities to develop greater resilience in order to anticipate surprises, recover from disruptions, and evolve in response to external pressures. Special efforts will be made to recruit speakers from groups that are underrepresented in science and engineering (e.g., minorities and women). The topics of environmental justice and equitable policies for disaster response will be addressed.
, which was held on January 14, 2013 in conjunction with the National Council for Science and Environment (NCSE) annual conference. The NSF award to Georgia Tech was combined with funding from NCSE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Dow Chemical Company in order to make this event possible. The symposium was designed to stimulate interactive discussion and creative exploration of the challenges and opportunities associated with achieving both resilience and sustainability. Meeting the dual challenges of sustainability and resilience requires a holistic "systems approach" to problem-solving. By better understanding the critical dependencies among human and natural systems, strategic planners in government and industry will be better able to develop resilient strategies that reduce vulnerability to unforeseen catastrophes, enable continued growth and prosperity, and respect ecological resource capacity. As a result, communities and enterprises will improve their capacity to anticipate, prepare for, and recover from disruptions, and to continuously adapt to changing environmental conditions. The symposium convened prominent researchers and expert practitioners from a variety of disciplines. Attendees included representatives from academia, industry and government who are investigating the modeling, assessment, and improvement of resilience and/or sustainability in economic, social, and ecological systems. The program consisted of a series of panel presentations and group discussions, resulting in a set of conclusions and recommendations that were presented in a plenary session at the NCSE conference. Approximately a dozen papers were developed as a direct result of the symposium, mainly authored by symposium participants, and they will appear in a special issue of the refereed journal Solutions, to be published in early 2014. Intellectual Merit By stimulating trans-disciplinary thinking and collaboration, the symposium contributed to (a) developing a more integrated understanding of common principles of resilient and sustainable systems, and (b) identifying useful approaches and tools for enhancing the resilience, sustainability, and productive harmony of human and natural systems. Broader Impacts This symposium contributed to broader awareness that ecological insights and systems thinking can help human enterprises and communities to develop greater resilience in order to anticipate surprises, recover from disruptions, and evolve in response to external pressure
