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Learning and Innovation in Resilient Systems

The research line Learning and Innovation in Resilient Systems (LIRS) is a multi-disciplinary and integrative research program carried out within the OU. The ambition of the research program is to build on the crucial notion of resilience and address some of the important challenges faced by modern societies that involve a complex interplay between social, economic, technological and environmental systems.

The need for adaptation and transformation

While resilience has often been associated with continued performance and stability of certain systems under stress, it is interpreted here in a way that emphasizes the need for adaptation and transformation. Resilience has become a key term explaining the performance of actors, organizations, and systems under external change that potentially disrupts their functioning. The research program is based on the notion that these challenges exist throughout societies, and also pertain to so called social-ecological systems, and human-technology relations. As a consequence, LIRS integrates various insights from social and behavioral sciences, computer sciences and natural sciences to tackle some of the modern challenges that emerge at the intersection of social, economic, environmental and technological systems.
The general aim of LIRS is to increase our understanding of the innovative and learning capacity of resilient systems, with a focus on (1) information and computer systems, (2) organizational and management systems, and (3) environmental, cultural as well as justice systems.

Multidisciplinary analysis

The main focus of the research line is the multidisciplinary analysis of resilient systems, as social transformations are multilayered and multifaceted. As such transformations emerge at the intersection of social, technological and environmental systems, only multidisciplinary research can generate valuable insights into how to embark on them. It is the ambition of the LIRS program to involve as many researchers as possible from the OU of the Netherlands in further research projects aimed at dealing with such complex challenges. The heterogeneity of the scientific disciplines represented in the OU, creates a natural research environment that facilitates the comprehensive and multi-dimensional analysis of various complex systems.

Recently started projects

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Read more on the research line, the themes and projects on the website Learning and innovation in Resilient Systems.