IIASA Strategic Plan

IIASA’s strategic plan for 2011-2020, Research for a Changing World, responds to today’s increasingly globalized world that is characterized by fundamental shifts in economic and political power, growing global environmental problems, and potentially explosive social conflicts. Enhanced knowledge and understanding of these complex and interdependent problems are needed to help decision makers chart a successful course through them.   

Systems analysis, which is the basis of work at IIASA, is one of the most effective tools for providing such knowledge. IIASA uses the best research, databases, and analytical tools to examine problems from multiple perspectives, including drivers, impacts, and solutions. This “integrated approach” crosses both national and academic disciplinary boundaries and ensures that problems are studied in their complexity and entirety, rather than as isolated issues.

During the coming decade, IIASA’s research will focus on the six areas highlighted in the above diagram.

From 2011 the Institute has focused its expertise and experience on three major problems:

1. Energy and Climate Change;
2. Food and Water; and
3. Poverty and Equity, together with three of the main drivers of global transformation:
4. Population,
5. Technology, and
6. Economic Growth.

Supporting such activity there is research to advance the methods of systems analysis, and work to maximize the impact of the Institute’s research on policy, particularly among IIASA’s National Member Organizations. Accompanying the ten-year strategy is a research plan which details the research to be carried out at IIASA from 2011 to 2015.

While research remains IIASA’s main mission, capacity building and education is also playing an important role. Thus, the Institute is building on its successful Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) to create new educational capacities and to offer courses and other study opportunities at IIASA itself and in IIASA’s member countries.

Last edited: 21 September 2012