Observatory of Resilience Practices: strategies and perspectives

In recent years there has been a remarkable expansion in use of resilience concept, which is used as a key concept in many local practices, but mainly should be better considered a reference approach for the new development project at local community level. In such perspective some institutions decided to invest in this; one of these projects is the experience presented in this essay. The essay presents the strategy, the main goals and the most important initiatives of the first year of activity of the Italian Observatory of Resilience Practices (ORP). The ORP was officially launched in April 2015 and it is supported and funded by the Italian bank foundation “Fondazione Cariplo”. Partners of ORP are the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano (the leader partner), the Department DIST of Politecnico di Torino, the CURSA Consortium and the REsilienceLAB Association. The Observatory is based on a project in which four main working axes may be recognized in this essay: _Mapping resilience practices at national level or the “Practices path” _Tools for resilience or the “Methodological path” _Resilience thinking or the “Cultural path” _Actors of resilience or the “Networking path” The approach adopted is incremental and innovative. It plays a role of facilitation in supporting and promoting the resilience practices and, at the same time, it integrates different knowledge sources and adaptive approaches. During the process of the ORP, some assets of research were identified, based on the needs of different stakeholders. The ORP aim is to connect and contaminate different approaches and “cultures”, being an “exchange and useful” platform promoting and supporting the diffusion of resilience practices. One of the aims of ORP is also to continuously offering best practices, tools, approaches and all others supports needed to enhanced and improved local communities and territories. ORP will develop several activities, for example: promote and improve the activities of local and thematic workgroups, organize an International Conference in September 2016 and develop an On-line platform. ORP has organized the first “National Forum on Resilience Practices” (Milan, January 29th 2016), involving in an exposition about 50 practices collected through an open call. The Forum is a moment of networking, but also a moment of debate in order to identify the main critical points and innovative strategies and solutions.