Disruptive transformations such as natural disasters, technological innovations, and demographic, socio-economic and organizational crises make resilience an urgent priority on the research agenda of contemporary social and behavioural sciences and humanities. The fragility of social systems and their underlying institutional foundations was investigated by the scholars and students who participated in the Summer School SuRe – Sustainable and Resilient Societies, organized by the University of Groningen from June 24th to 29th at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome.
This course brought together researchers from different disciplines, whose work is related to resilience at the level of individuals, collectives (organizations, communities, families), societies and their institutions, as well as its conceptual or ethical dimensions. Urgent questions about the relationship between sustainability and resilience were investigated through a demographic, historical, sociological, psychological, and economic approach.
Top scholars from all of Europe introduced key topics and worked closely with the students to develop research projects. One of these, Domenico Cecere, shed new light on disasters from a historical perspective. His lecture addressed the cultural, social, and political impact of extreme events on early modern societies. The P.I. of the DisComPoSE project outlined the evolution of policies and practices aimed at managing uncertainty and recovering from an interruption of social relationships. His presentation aimed to highlight that comparisons with events occurring in past centuries enable us to investigate the transformations in the ways societies have perceived risks and responded to disasters caused by environmental or biological factors.
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