IIASA is an international scientific institute that conducts policy-oriented research into problems that are too large or too complex to be solved by a single country or academic discipline. Problems like climate change that have a global reach and can be resolved only by international cooperative action. Or problems of common concern to many countries that need to be addressed at the national level, such as energy security, population aging, and sustainable development. Funded by scientific institutions in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, IIASA is also independent – completely unconstrained by political or national self-interest. IIASA’s mission is to:
- provide insights and guidance to policymakers worldwide by finding solutions to global
and universal problems through applied systems analysis in order to improve
human and social wellbeing and protect the environment.
Some 200 mathematicians, social scientists, natural scientists, economists and engineers from over 35 countries carry out research at IIASA in Laxenburg, Austria. These range from world-renowned scholars – four Nobel Prize laureates have worked at IIASA – to young scientists just embarking on their careers. In addition, IIASA-related research networks around the globe collect and process local and regional data for integration into IIASA’s advanced scientific models. Through such scientific collaboration IIASA also builds bridges between countries.
IIASA researches real world problems using cutting-edge science. It provides practical and independent insights into today’s most pressing global issues relating to the environment, society and technology. It has also been a leading contributor for more than 30 years to the development and refinement of assessment and decision-support methodologies, global databases, and analytical tools in particular in the field of integrated assessment modelling.
Over decades IIASA has developed a cluster of global and regionally differentiated modelling tools for integrated assessment. In particular, for the assessment of global scale climate mitigation strategies IIASA has developed the MESSAGE-GLOBIOM model. This model is used for impact assessments, economic analyses, modelling, scenario building, and data provisioning in the fields of energy, land use, forestry, and agriculture. The integrated model cluster contains inter alia biophysical models of forestry and agriculture, engineering costing models for energy production.
IIASA has key expertise on analysing low carbon development strategies in integrated assessment modelling. The IIASA research team that has been assembled provides a unique set of qualities that will enable the delivery of high quality outputs:
- Demonstrated strong expertise in the fields of energy, land-use modeling, forestry, agriculture, food sequrity, biomass feedstock availability, as well as climate change;
- Strong expertise in the field of economic modeling and complex systems analysis;
- Ongoing modeling SDG compatible pathways;
- Extensive experience in assessing the impacts of policy options, scenario building exercises, and economic analyses with respect to EU and international policies;
- Expertise in greenhouse has emission monitoring, reporting, verification, accounting, related mostly to land;
Finally, IIASA has initiatated The Arctic Futures Initiative (AFI) to bringa systems analysis perspective to the future of the Arctic. The objective of the IIASA Arctic Futures Initiative (AFI) is a holistic assessment of the Arctic integrating research, policy, business, and society.
Main tasks in the project
IIASA will contribute to Task 8.4 on projections of the future evolution of Arctic permafrost environment and their socio-economic consequences through integrated assessment modelling. IIASA’s model cluster assess the additional mitigation costs to compensate for emissions from permafrost melting. IIASA will also provide a global setting for scenarios in WP9 to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies on local scale.
IIASA staff involved in Nunataryuk
| PI in WP8 Dr. Michael Obersteiner International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, ESM Program A-2361 Laxenburg Austria +43-2236-807-460 +43-676-83-807-460
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Researcher in WP8
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