Mapping flood resilience in rural Nepal
Making the most of the IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program
Artist seeks scientist(s) for long-term relationship
Marriage or cohabitation means a longer and healthier life
Why are the refugees who came to Austria in 2015 more educated than expected?
A world on the move
Boosting resilience for African cities
Should food security be a priority for the EU?
Arctic in the spotlight
At the crossroads of scientific enlightenment and regression
Preventing a water crisis at the US-Mexico border
Female-headed households hit harder by climate change
Leave no SDG behind
Diversity in dialogue
Interview: Businesses now have social goals
Interview: An occasion for innovation
Interview: Science through the language of art
The land of the midnight sun: Science to policy in the Arctic Council
Playing at flood resilience: Using games to help vulnerable communities
Modeling Vienna’s traffic: air pollution and health
Altmetrics—measuring impact on an article level
Interview: Plants and their fungi to slow down climate change
Pipe dream or savior?
Water security for sustainable development
Can we give foresight prescription lenses?
Is it worth it to bike to work?
Picture Pile: Gaming for Science
When global lessons are not so easily learned
It’s time to measure 21st century aging with 21st century tools
Modeling forest fires: a burning issue
Challenges for marine decision making in the Arctic
Better water, better jobs
How coordination can boost the resilience of complex supply chains
Climate change, bioenergy, and ozone in the EU
Migration analysis: A growing priority for policy
Interview: Disposable lives, globalization, and the future of sustainability
Science communication in the age of cat videos
Interview: The role of education in the future of humanity
Aligning politics and practice for climate risks
The mathematics of love
What does your walking say about your true age?
Don’t dope – run the code!
Turning Vienna into a city of science
Cross-country skiing in Finland: An endangered tradition?
Interview: Are we accidentally genetically engineering the world’s fish?
Who are the refugees?
Why universal secondary education can help fight climate change
To tackle climate change, abandon “climate policy”
Science for climate risk management and climate justice
Education and crime in South Africa
This summer in Moscow: Impressions from Moscow Summer Academy 2015
Scientific decision support systems: One step beyond bridging science to policy
Pessimism is not an option: The road to sustainable development
Living in two different cultures: Scientists and policymakers come together for evidence-based policy
Population: How Many People Will Live in Africa in 2100?
Flourishing within limits to growth
South-south cooperation for healthy, productive and sustainably managed forests
Beating the heat with more data on urban form and function
Why education should top the development agenda
Emission rates of VW models in Europe as high as in the USA
10 steps to removing carbon from the global economy
A new vision of Trans-Eurasian transportation
Interview: Can nature bounce back?
Science for policy’s sake
By Daisy Brickhill, IIASA Science Writer and Editor “In some senses, the science-policy process can be likened to a sausage being made,” said Dr E. William Colglazier in his lecture at IIASA this week. We could take this in different ways: that it is messy, perhaps,...
Network science and marketing: A virus’ tale
Fulfilling the Enlightenment dream: Arts and science complementing each other
Do scientists need the media?
Back to the future: using scenarios to road-test the policies of tomorrow
Making ends meet: Negative emissions for climate stabilization
The city resilient – some systems thinking
By Bruce Beck, Imperial College London and Michael Thompson, IIASA Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program. What do Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium in London, the now glorious heritage of Islington’s housing stock, and the cable-car system in Kathmandu for getting...
Crossing tribal lines: Interdisciplinary cooperation in IIASA’s YSSP
Accounting for land use in EU climate policy
Black swan sandwich: From one risk to layered risks
Countdown to zero?
Interview: Population characteristics and the climate
Interview: Linking climate adaptation and mitigation
Towards a Catholic North America in 2062?
What do our models really represent?
How do you operationalize the water-energy nexus?
Envisioning a better global future: Reporting back from the World in 2050 launch meeting
Interview: Outside the castle walls
You will miss the river when it runs dry: Water governance at the U.S. – Mexico border
A long road ahead on risk-sensitive development in Madagascar
A futuristic view of farming
How can research help achieve resilience?
Interview: Coal, natural gas, and clean air for China
Interview: Aquatic invaders and ecological networks
Global carbon taxation: a back of the envelope calculation
Climate change missing from government risk agendas
Lima: A stronger role for climate risk management
By Reinhard Mechler & Thomas Schinko (IIASA) with Swenja Surminski (LSE) (updated 17 December 2014) As participants in the 20th Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention (COP 20) in Lima strived to prepare the grounds for a comprehensive climate...
Science that matters: Perspective from young scientists
Six questions for Simon Levin
Journey of your life: Demography for the demos
Mapping the global palm oil boom
Beyond sharing Earth observations
9 billion or 11 billion? The research behind new population projections
Interview: Inequality is a lifelong story
Tarja Halonen was the 11th President of the Republic of Finland and Finland’s first female head of state from 2000 to 2012. She currently serves as the Co-Chair of the UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, and the Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders....
Charting connections: the next challenge for systems analysis
Poverty eradication and climate change: Is there a conflict?
Innovating to address climate change
Tackling the dilemma of local actions and planetary boundaries
Barriers to adaptation: Really?
William Nordhaus: A new model for climate treaties
The future of social change
Risk-based planning in developing countries—CATSIM training in Cambodia
Towards old-age pensions for everyone in Mexico
Winning hearts for climate change
Interview: From systems analysis to remote sensing
Alumni memories: nuclear reactors and energy models
Would addressing climate change improve energy security?
By Jessica Jewell, Research Scholar, IIASA Energy Program How would action to mitigate climate change affect energy security for countries around the world? In two recent studies that I worked on with colleagues in IIASA’s Energy Program and three other European...
Uncertainty in an emissions-constrained world
By Matthias Jonas, IIASA, and Gregg Marland, Appalachian State University Greenhouse gas emissions are seldom measured directly. They must be estimated from data such as on energy use and changes in land use. That means that estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from...
Towards a climate risk management approach for adaptation
By Reinhard Mechler, IIASA Risk, Policy, and Vulnerability Program On March 25, member countries of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) started discussing the key findings of the second volume of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in Yokohama, Japan....
Interview: Women, education, and leadership in Africa
Lanoi Maloiy is a PhD student at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, and a participant in the recently completed 2013-14 Southern African Young Scientists Summer Program (SA-YSSP), which IIASA co-organizes with the South African National Research Foundation...
Interview: Sustainable development—the challenge of our generation
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network is an expert on economics, development, and sustainability, and a founding member of IIASA and European Forum Alpbach’s Global...
A continuing transformation
By Aviott John, IIASA alumnus Anyone who has seen before and after photos of Schloss Laxenburg—the home of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)—knows what an incredible physical transformation the building went through between 1972 and 1981...
What is the optimal fertility rate?
By Erich Striessnig, IIASA World Population Program When asked what a desirable fertility level for populations might be, most politicians, journalists, and even social scientists would say it is around two children per woman, as this would – on the long run – prevent...
Systems analysis for risk and resilient development
By Junko Mochizuki, Adriana Keating and Reinhard Mechler, IIASA Risk, Policy, and Vulnerability Program The year 2015 will mark a crucial milestone for the international development, climate change, and disaster management communities. Negotiations are currently...
IIASA Employee Number 1
By Martha Wohlwendt IIASA's Alumni Association is hosting its first Alumni Day on April 29, 2014, and we are inviting alumni to send their memories and photos of their time at IIASA. Our first post comes from Martha Wohlwendt, IIASA’s first employee, Executive...
How can Europe cope with multiple disaster risks?
Interview with IIASA risk expert Nadejda Komendantova In a new study, IIASA Risk, Policy, and Vulnerability Program researcher Nadejda Komendantova and colleagues from Germany and Switzerland examined how natural hazards and risks assessments can be incorporated into...
Interview: Taking Geo-Wiki to the ground
Steffen Fritz has just been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant to fund a research project on crowdsourcing and ground data collection on land-use and land cover. In this interview he talks about his plans for the new project, CrowdLand. What’s the problem with current...
Modeling terrorism
On October 15, 2012, a young man from Bangladesh named Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis parked next to New York Federal Reserve Bank in a van with what he believed was a 1000-pound bomb, walked a few blocks away, and then attempted to detonate the bomb by mobile...
How to save lives—and money – by addressing India’s air pollution
By Erich Striessnig, Research Assistant, IIASA World Population Program We have all heard about the terrible air pollution in India’s cities. Average concentrations of particulate pollution exceed World Health Organization guidelines through most of India, most of the...
Healthy living in hard times?
By Raya Muttarak, Research Scholar, IIASA World Population Program For many years social scientists have observed a connection between economic downturns and a reduction in both unhealthy behaviors and mortality—a paradigm known as “healthy living in hard times.” One...
Interview: Exploring stereotypes about older people
A new study by IIASA researchers Katie Bowen and Vegard Skirbekk examines the stereotypes people have about older people, and what factors influence those views across a number of countries. In this interview Bowen describes the new findings and their implications....
How games can help science: Introducing Cropland Capture
By Linda See, Research Scholar, IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program On a recent rush hour train ride in London I looked around to see just about everybody absorbed in their mobile phone or tablet. This in itself is not that unusual. But when I snooped...
REDD+: Cutting emissions, not trees, in the Congo Basin
By Aline Mosnier, IIASA Research Scholar Deforestation and forest degradation contribute substantially to greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in developing countries. The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus forest conservation,...
Interview: The Arctic is closer than you think
Peter Lemke, head of the Climate Sciences Research Division at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, is an expert on sea ice, a polar explorer, and the Chair of the IIASA Council. In this interview Lemke...
Interview: The problems with phosphorus
In a new commentary (subscription required) in Nature Geoscience, IIASA researchers Michael Obersteiner, Marijn van der Velde, and colleagues write about the problems facing the world’s food supply as we exhaust our supplies of phosphorus. Projections show that...
Recharge.green: What’s a forest worth?
This post was originally published on the recharge.green blog. IIASA is a partner in the new project, which focuses on the potential for renewable energy in the Alps. When I think of an alpine forest, I think of the towering cedar trees that blanket the Cascade...
What does the IPCC report mean for climate policy?
By Anthony Patt, ETH Zurich and IIASA (From ETH-Klimablog) The first of three working group reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was made public last Friday. Previous reports served as guidepost for climate policy development. And yet some...
Interview: REDD+ in Cambodia
Pheakkdey Nguon, participant in IIASA's 2012 Young Scientists Summer Program, and IIASA Annual Fund recipient, has won an IPCC reserach fellowship to fund his research on REDD+ in Cambodia. In this interview he discusses his research plans, the award, and his...
Foresight academy converges minds, cultures, and comfort zones
By Jennifer Chan, participant in the IIASA co-led IFA Summer School From 9 to 13 September in Laxenburg, Austria a group of researchers and practitioners gathered for the International Foresight Academy Summer School program organized by the Austrian Institute of...
Play the Green Energy Consumption game
By Kanae Matsui – Participant in the IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) 2013 As part of my YSSP project for summer 2013, I developed a Web site to study consumer behaviors towards electricity market liberalization to the residential side. This liberalization...
Interview: Where does biodiversity come from?
A new study by researchers from McGill University and IIASA provides insight into how environments promote biodiversity. McGill University evolutionary biologist Ben Haller, who led the study, started the work as part of IIASA’s Young Scientists Summer Program in...
Inside the Alpbach Forum
By Pavel Kabat, IIASA Director and Chief Executive Officer This year is my second participating in the world-renowned Alpbach Forum. Last year I was invited to contribute to the Technology Forum and participated in breakout sessions with Karlheinz Töchterle, Austria’s...
The Southern African YSSP: My experience
By Valentina Prado, PhD student at Arizona State University, SA-YSSP participant 2012-2013 @ValentinaASU I am a PhD student in Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU). I was born in Cali, Colombia, and when I was in high school, my family immigrated...
Mapping the world with crowdsourcing
By Linda See, Research Scholar, IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program Humans have a long history of map-making that can be traced back to cave paintings older than 20,000 years, and detailed maps made by the ancient Romans, Greeks, and Chinese. These maps...
IIASA and the private sector
By Björn Stigson There is both a need for and an interest in cooperation between science and the global business community. There are many options that we can consider on how IIASA can interact more with the private sector, creating a special business advisory panel...