From Contested Concept to Shared Vision: Reimagining Urban Resilience Through Action Research

Urban resilience is widely mobilised across built-environment research and practice, yet it remains conceptually contested, with definitions varying across disciplines and limiting translation into coherent planning and governance. This study examines how a multidisciplinary group of built-environment researchers conceptualise resilience and resilient futures, and how these understandings evolve through structured transdisciplinary engagement. Using an exploratory action research design, twelve academic staff and higher degree research candidates from a single built-environment school at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia participated in a two-day workshop combining individual reflection, facilitated group discussion, and engagement with the key resilience literature, followed by consolidation through collaborative writing. Thematic coding of participants’ definitions and discussions identified three primary framings: shocks and stresses, processes, and future outcomes. Participants shifted away from “bouncing back” narratives towards anticipatory preparedness, learning, adaptation, and, when needed, transformation. Cross-cutting themes highlighted the dual nature of disturbances, governance spanning formal and informal systems, multi-scalar interdependence, cultural identity and continuity through change. The study proposes a consolidated definition of urban resilience that makes these dimensions explicit and supports operationalising resilient futures. Given the single-institution sample, the definition is offered as a transferable starting point rather than a definitive interpretation.