Bibliometric analysis of the concept of resilience applied to regional development

© 2016, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. All rights reserved. Resilience is a much known concept in ecological sciences and engineering that has gained increased use in recent years in studies on the social sciences, and particularly on regional economics. Several researchers have attempted to consolidate the use of this concept in regional development by linking the resilience of regions to their capacity to anticipate and prepare for, respond to and recover from a disruption. However, there is little information about how this new concept has evolved together with the social sciences. This article presents the results of a bibliometric analysis of resilience in the context of regional development whose aim is, among other things, to deepen the understanding of how the use of the concept of resilience has evolved, and identify the authors and journals that contribute most to the study of this subject, as well as the most commonly used terminology and the locations and years of the most important publications. The results demonstrate that although resilience is a new concept that is in the process of being adapted to the social sciences, it has already become an important instrument in explaining differences in regions’ capacity for economic adjustment in unfavorable scenarios.