Working across scales means connecting what happens at ground level with what happens at regional, state and national levels. It's about the vertical flow of knowledge and resources: how what you learn locally can inform broader policy and planning, and how state or regional support can respond to what communities need.
The local level offers lived experience and practical knowledge about what works in specific contexts. Regional and state levels bring resources, cross-community perspective, and the ability to coordinate at larger scales. When these vertical connections work well, knowledge flows up to inform planning, and support flows down in ways that fit local realities.
The challenge is often the gap between levels. A policy designed at state level might not account for local variations. Local innovations might never reach the people who could adapt them for broader use. Working across scales means deliberately building vertical connections that allow two-way flow.
This might look like local groups having regular channels to share what they're learning with regional coordinators, or state-level planners seeking input from communities before designing new programs. It means creating spaces where people from different scales can talk together about what's needed and what's working.
When vertical connections function well, planning at larger scales is informed by ground-level reality. Resources and support reach communities effectively. Each scale contributes what it does best without losing sight of the others.
Something to chew on:
Where could stronger vertical connections help local knowledge shape broader decisions, or help regional coordination better respond to local needs?
Resilience Bites offers weekly insights from the Australian Resilience Centre, drawn from decades of work alongside communities across Australia and internationally. Each Bite explores an aspect of resilience and closes with a reflective question to chew on.
Across the series we'll explore themes that shape resilience in practice, including place, patterns, networks, leadership, learning, feedbacks, thresholds and the deeper work of change.
This series is for people working in communities, landscapes, systems and change. It will help you learn key resilience concepts, apply them in practice and build our collective capacity to create resilient futures.
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