Engineering Ecosystem Resilience

Document type: Opportunity space

Author: Yannick Wurm

Date published: 11 August 2025

Version: 1

DOI: https://doi.org/10.67475/eer8kk3-ft73

Abstract

From soil microbes to towering forests, living organisms underpin our civilisation by supplying our food, regulating our climate, and providing the substrates for tomorrow’s medicines and materials. However, ecosystems worldwide are collapsing, and current efforts to safeguard their services and resources are insufficient. By combining high-resolution measurement with targeted, resilience-boosting interventions, we could halt current declines and ultimately reverse them, enabling communities and ecosystems to prosper together.

Engineering Ecosystem Resilience was one of ARIA's original opportunity spaces. Following an evolution of our research portfolio in August 2026, it now sits within the Resilient Climate and Ecosystems opportunity space. The beliefs and observations that defined Engineering Ecosystem Resilience still hold, and its remit continues in full within Resilient Climate and Ecosystems with respect to both future programmes and seed funding. No active funding was affected by this change.