Minerva’s owl always flies at dusk, is the old saying – wisdom always emerges in hindsight. This paradox has crippling effects in dealing with the challenges posed by the urgent need to adapt to the increasing effects of climate change and to strengthen the resilience of individuals, communities, and of our institutions and systems. As urbanisation gathers pace, nowhere is this need more urgent than in our cities. Urban resilience is a broad concept that connects disciplines such as engineering, psychology, disaster risk reduction, urban planning, or community development. The term's use has skyrocketed, leading to increasing gaps between resilience knowledge and its implementation.
This research explores the role of systems approaches and social learning in bridging these gaps. The thesis consists of two parts: defining the problem situation and intervening to improve it. The first part contains a review of relevant literature (Chapter 2) and the design of an empirical study (Chapter 4) to investigate how knowledge–implementation gaps emerge and how they might be bridged. The second part charts two interventions (Chapter 5): the design and facilitation of the 2020 Urban Resilience Summer School, and the co-facilitation of the ensuing Urban Resilience Community of Practice (2020-21), both aimed at mid-career professionals.
The original contributions to knowledge are theoretical and methodological. This research has advanced the current understanding of knowledge–implementation gaps. It has developed and tested a framework and demonstrated how it could enable professionals to cultivate systemic skills and capabilities from a lower towards a higher maturity. It has provided evidence of the need to extend capacity building beyond one-off programmes and has demonstrated the potential of transdisciplinary communities of practice in sustaining learning. Lastly, my first-person inquiry revealed the role facilitation plays in enabling capacity building and transdisciplinary collaboration.