Germany

Professor Peter Lemke, Head of Climate Sciences Research Division at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, is the current Chair of the IIASA Council (2010- ), he is also Chair of the German NMO, and is the IIASA Council Member for Germany.

Professor Meinrat O. Andreae from the Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, and Professor Claudia Pahl-Wostl from the University of Osnabrück are Members of the IIASA Science Advisory Committee.

Collaborations with, or research relevant to, Germany began in the 1970s focusing on forestry, land and water management, nutrition, demographics and human capital, air quality, and international negotiation and conflict resolution. Collaborations today continue in many of these disciplinary areas, in particular:

• energy security and sustainability;
• land management;
• air quality and carbon assessment;
• demography;
• fisheries;
• risk analysis; and
• climate change.

Key Relationships and Collaborations

IIASA has partnerships, or is collaborating with more than forty German organizations, including:

• Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven
• Hamburg University
• German Aerospace Center (DLR)
• German Advisory Council on Global Change, Berlin
• German Federal Ministry for Education and Research
• Institute for Baltic Sea Fisheries (IOR)
• Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin
• Max Planck Institute (various)
• Munich Climate Change Insurance Initiative (MCCII)
• Osnabrueck University
• Potsdam-Institute for Climate Research (PIK)
• University of Konstanz

Select Research Highlights

Following is a selection of research highlights relating to IIASA and Germany. For more information read the attached IIASA-Germany NMO country profile.

Fisheries and evolutionary research:

IIASA is the coordinator, or is a member of, several fisheries networks that involve, or are led by, German research organizations. Select examples include:

• FINE, the Fisheries Induced Evolution networking program. Coordinated by IIASA, FINE aims to understand the prevalence of fisheries induced evolution in European and North American waters. Ultimately the project aims to provide the scientific basis for designing policies and implementing management measures that can cope with fisheries-induced adaptive changes.
• IIASA is a contributor to ADAPTFISH – the Adaptive Dynamics and Management of Coupled Social-Ecological Recreational Fisheries project. ADAPTFISH is coordinated by the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries.

Energy and climate change research:

• IIASA, in collaboration with PIK and the Carl von Ossietzky University, conduct the Actors' Long Term Investments in the Context of Climate and Energy project – ALICE. The research aims to identify the decision-making criteria that are important for long-term investment decisions in various energy generation options within Europe, and to incorporate these criteria into evaluations of potential future energy paths and policies to achieve those paths.
• IIASA with GERMANWATCH and the MCCII have completed a significant study on how insurance, including public–private arrangements with international support, can help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change and extreme events. IIASA and MCII have proposed a risk management module consisting of two pillars, risk reduction and insurance, which would act together to reduce the human and economic burdens on developing countries. Read the policy brief.
• Germany is a contributor to, and a Member of, the Global Energy Assessment citing its potential as "...one of most important tools for policymakers at this important juncture of major global challenges." John Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Chair of the German Government's WBGU is a Member of the GEA Council. IIASA Deputy Director Nebojsa Nakicenovic is a Member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) (2009 – present). He is also an Energy Advisory Group Member, Research Center Jülich, Germany.
• IIASA and PIK have produced a range of publications on the potential of Concentrated Solar Power and more broadly, renewable energy, to fuel Europe.
• IIASA in collaboration with Joanneum Research and other partners completed the European Union commissioned Refuel project, which developed an EU road map for biofuels in transport.

Forestry and land management:

• Funded by the European Commission, PIK, The University of Hamburg, and the University of Freiburg are partners in GEOBENE: Global Earth Observation - Benefit Estimation: Now, Next and Emerging project. This IIASA led study is developing tools to assess societal benefits of Earth Observation in the domains of; disasters, health, energy, climate, water, weather, ecosystems, agriculture, and biodiversity.
• Coordinated by IIASA, Germany, through the University of Hamburg, the Max-Plank Institute for Meteorology, and the European Commission are partners in CC-TAME - Climate Change - Terrestrial Adaption and Mitigation in Europe. CC-TAME is assessing the impacts of agricultural, climate, energy, forestry and other associated land-use policies on the European climate.

Air quality and GHG mitigation:

• Germany, through the French-German Institute for Environmental Research, is a participant in the IIASA led NIAM. NIAM is the Network for Integrated Assessment Modeling and was established under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution.
• Coordinated by IIASA and funded by the EU-LIFE programme, EC4MACS is a consortium of European institutions that build and maintain a network of modeling tools, which provide an integrated assessment of the effectiveness of emission control strategies for air pollutants and GHGs in Europe. The project supports the revision of the EU's Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution and the European Climate Change Programme on policies for reducing GHGs beyond 2020. The IIASA GAINS model is used in these assessments. The University of Bonn and EuroCARE GmbH Bonn are members of the consortium.

Capacity Building

IIASA's annual Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP), offers advanced level PhD candidates the opportunity to work with IIASA scientists over a 3-month period, with the explicit aim of refining or extending their research skills in the area of systems analysis. Since the first German participant in 1979, a total of 109 German nationals, or students supported by Germany, have completed the YSSP.

The NMO for Germany regularly funds a student from a non-NMO developing country to participate in the YSSP.

Special Awards

German students have also been the recipients of the annual YSSP Peccei and Mikhalevich Awards. In 2009 the Peccei Award went to Gregor Kiesewetter from the University of Bremen, for his research on the variability of the ozone layer and chemistry-climate interactions.

In 2008 the Mikhalevich Award went to Jan Ohlberger from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, for his research in developing a model of the ecological diversification of fish along a water temperature gradient.

Last edited: 07 May 2012