Building resilience, or the capacity to be okay and do okay when exposed to significant stress, continues to be at the forefront of research agendas. To that end, a group of scholars and practitioners from diverse disciplines engaged in a week-long think tank. Hosted by Prof Linda Theron (Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria), this group engaged with local youth and service providers, and developed a proposal for a research study that intends to build on the fieldshifting work of the Resilient Youth in Stressed Environments (RYSE) study.

RYSE, which is a multi-site, multi-year study co-led by Dr Michael Ungar (Canada Research Chair: Child, Family and Community Resilience and Professor of Social Work, Dalhousie University) and Prof Linda Theron, concludes in March 2024. Among many novel insights, RYSE showed the value of multi-systemic approaches to investigating— and enabling—youth resilience.This next study hopes to advance this approach. In keeping with lessons learned during lockdown, the think tank embraced both in-person and virtual participation.

Virtual participants included Dr Brian McGrath (Professor of Urban Design, the New York School), Prof Dov Stekel (Professor of Computational Biology, University of Nottingham), Dr Jan Höltge (Postdoctoral fellow in the RYSE study and University of Hawai'iat Mānoa), Prof Josh Vande Hey (Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science and Sensing, University of Leicester) and Prof Oláńrewájú Oláníyan (Professor of Economics, University of Ibadan), while the in-person participants included Dr Caradee Wright (Chief Resilience think-tank Author: Prof Linda Theron Specialist Scientist: Environment & Health, Medical Research Council), Ms Celeste Matross (Country Director, REPSSI), Dr Diane Levine (Assistant Professor of Criminology, University of Leicester), Prof Flavia Senkubuge (Professor of Public Health Medicine, UP), Dr Karmel Choi (Director, Precision Prevention Program, Harvard), Ms Makananelo Makape (Regional Program Officer, REPSSI), Mr Matteo Bergamini (COE, ShoutOut UK), Dr Michael Ungar (Canada Research Chair: Child, Family and Community Resilience) and Dr Zainab Mai-Bornu (Lecturer in International Politics, University of Leicester).