This MRI-funded synthesis workshop took place in the context of the International Mountain Conference (IMC) 2019 – held in September in Innsbruck, Austria – and aimed to deepen discussions initiated during an Open Think Tank earlier that week at the same location on the development of the first Mountain Resilience Report.

Bringing together leading scholars from academia and practice, this post-IMC synthesis workshop took place on 13 September 2019 and laid the foundations for the design and development of a resilience report for mountain regions. The specific resilience angle of this workshop was on understanding and incubating innovative capacities to create and implement effective, real-world solutions and build regenerative mountain systems.

The workshop opened with a presentation of insights gained during the earlier Open Think Tank on the topic, which took place during IMC 2019. This was followed by an overview of the ambitions of the MRI and the Alpine Convention in the area of mountain resilience. Workshop participants then engaged in an exchange of experiences in the field of community resilience in mountain regions, which helped to clearly set out their key interests in terms of both research and community outreach. This open exchange also served as a valuable basis for the definition of next steps towards the workshop’s ultimate goal: the development of the first Mountain Resilience Report (MRR).

Pictured above: Dynamic discussions during the workshop Towards a Mountain Resilience Report: Regenerating Mountain Systems through Systemic Innovation (Photos: MRI).

To this end, during the workshop an initial outline of a joint review paper was developed on the resilience of mountain communities and social-ecological systems, with completion of the final paper expected mid-2020 in line with the IPCC AR6 WGII deadlines for paper submission and paper acceptance. This paper will then form the basis of a joint research funding proposal to fully develop the first MRR by 2021/2022. The establishment of a working group on mountain resilience, hosted by the MRI, was agreed upon. Future outreach among various research communities and civil-society actors active in the field of resilience will allow this working group to benefit from and link up existing, but hitherto unconnected, knowledge in the field. Furthermore, the establishment of a platform hosted by the MRI to link up existing initiatives and best-practice examples from mountain regions around the world is intended. A workshop involving multiple thought-cultures (i.e., science, design, programming, activists, local inhabitants, politicians) in a real-world lab context in order to prototype resilience design tools is planned for next year.

“The very open discussion and the great overlap of interests between the workshop participants was a real highlight,” said workshop organizer Professor Tobias Luthe of the Institute for Spatial and Landscape Development, ETH Zurich. “The workshop has laid the basis for a successful future collaboration between the representatives of the organizations and institutions present at Innsbruck, including the MRI.”

Pictured above: Focused participants during synthesis workshop activities (Photos: Tobias Luthe).

For more information about this workshop and the related planned activities, please contact the workshop organizers:

• Tobias Luthe, ETHZ und MonViso Institute: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
• Romano Wyss, EPFL and Wyss Conseil Scientifique: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This event was funded by the MRI as part of its Call For Synthesis Workshops 2019.