Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to announce a call for papers that focuses on sustainable strategies aimed at enhancing resilience. Researchers are invited to explore and analyse case studies or undertake comparative case studies to investigate effective approaches for building resilience in domains including cities, organizations, ecosystems, and communities.

Resilience is a pivotal concept in the face of numerous challenges such as climate change, natural disasters, economic instability, social disruptions, and pandemics. The imperative to develop sustainable strategies that enhance resilience has become increasingly vital for addressing these complex and interconnected issues. Moreover, a sustainable strategy is unique to each sector and its operations. It consists of various short-term and long-term actions based on the types of value chains as well as the possibility of adopting new technologies, which can be disruptive. By analysing case studies, we can gain a better understanding of the complexities of implementing sustainable strategies for enhancing resiliency and how the solutions can be supportive or disruptive in various domains and for different shocks. Therefore, we can analyse the barriers and opportunities for devising and implementing actionable steps that are sustainable and also effective for enhancing resilience.  

Submissions using different methodologies will be automatically rejected. Submissions should provide a clear description of the research design, data collection and analysis methods, and theoretical frameworks used to examine the chosen case study or comparative case study.

Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

1. Urban Resilience: Investigating sustainable strategies employed by cities to enhance resilience in the face of climate change, rapid urbanization, and socio-economic challenges through case studies.
2. Organizational Resilience: Examining sustainable strategies adopted by organizations to build resilience in the face of disruptive events, economic shocks, or changing market dynamics through comparative case studies.
3. Ecosystem Resilience: Exploring sustainable strategies utilized to restore and protect ecosystems, enhance biodiversity, and mitigate the impacts of environmental changes through case studies.
4. Community Resilience: Investigating sustainable strategies that promote social cohesion, community engagement, and empower vulnerable communities to withstand and recover from shocks and stressors through comparative case studies.
5. Resilience in Critical Infrastructure: Analysing sustainable strategies for building resilience in critical infrastructure systems, such as transportation, energy, water, and telecommunications networks, through case studies.
6. Resilience in value chain: Value chain resilience refers to the ability of a value chain to endure and recover from disruptions, shocks, and uncertainties while maintaining or quickly restoring normal operations and value delivery. Resilience in value chains encompasses robustness, flexibility, and responsiveness to internal and external challenges, aiming to minimize disruptions, protect stakeholder interests, and sustain overall performance and competitiveness.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Pietro De Giovanni
Dr. Maria Alice Moreira Trindade
Dr. Behzad Maleki Vishkaei
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainable strategies
• comparative case study
• urban resilience
• organizational resilience
• ecosystem resilience
• community resilience
• resilience in critical infrastructure
• resilience in value chain