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Abstract This article reviews the prospects and potential problems of incorporating the resilience concepts into regional development research. A growing interest in regional resilience may be interpreted as a reflection of the rising awareness of increased socio‐economic and environmental uncertainties, as well as a reaction to the disproportionate theoretical focus on regional growth in the past regional development research. Regional resilience research is still in its infancy, characterized by lively debates over conceptual definitions, research methodology, theoretical significance and practical utility. The paper first addresses conceptual dimensions of the regional resilience research, and explores how the regional development research may incorporate resilience concepts beyond a metaphor. The panarchy framework is then reviewed as an example of a broad framework, originally developed by ecologists, gaining attention in regional research. The paper then explores opportunities and challenges of empirical assessment of regional resilience. Despite the potentially exciting intellectual cross‐fertilization of resilience research across diverse fields, I emphasize that the value of regional resilience research should be ultimately based on whether the explanations and insights from the study can be connected to, and consistent with, the views and experiences of those who are affected locally, rather than its theoretical consistencies with the broader resilience literature.
Daisaku Yamamoto (Sat,) studied this question.