Mind the Gap: Defining Urban Resilience Knowledge-Implementation Gaps

Abstract

Background: As the use of the term urban resilience has gathered momentum, its meaning has diverged from a clear academic concept toward fuzzy and increasingly vague definitions that seek to address the normative dimensions of resilience for whom, of what, and for when. While the academic discourse is putting forward theoretical advances in the conceptualization of resilience, there is growing concern that, in practice, the term is being co-opted as a mechanism for implementing policies that support business as usual. Methods: This paper identifies current urban resilience knowledge-implementation gaps and how they occur. It does so through a systematic literature review and 21 semi-structured interviews with mid-career urban resilience professionals (researchers, practitioners, policymakers). Results and conclusions: The findings point to five types of gaps: definitional, epistemic, multiscalar, methodological, and values gaps. Because the increased concern for how urban resilience knowledge production systems operate and the operationalization barriers they create are a relatively recent issue, there is a pressing need not only to identify them but to explore how they can be addressed. The paper concludes by putting forward potential next steps to address the identified gaps through transdisciplinarity: fostering skills and capabilities for systemic approaches at individual, team, and organizational levels and facilitating inter- and intra-organizational learning through communities of practice.