Risk, Policy, and Vulnerability

The long-term aim of the IIASA Program on Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) is to conduct conceptual and applied analyses that contribute to decreasing the risk and vulnerability of societies and ecosystems, and promoting their adaptation and resilience, to stresses imposed or aggravated by global change phenomena. Our research is relevant mainly, but not exclusively, to developing countries. By addressing the social, economic and ecological system, and considering multiple stresses and system resilience, vulnerability as a research-organizing concept is more complex than risk. Addressing this complexity is the fundamental challenge of this research program. The specific goals of the program are fourfold:

The program builds on the methodologies, activities and experience gained from the previous IIASA Risk, Modeling and Society (RMS) Program, and integrates across other IIASA programs and links closely with the vulnerability/resilience research communities.

Our research is divided into 3 research groups:

Water and Resilience

Efforts to apply science to understand and manage change have provoked a range of theories to facilitate discussion and generate ideas to test.  More

Decisions and Governance

The Decisions and Governance theme investigates how the presence of risk and uncertainty influences the design of successful policies in the areas of environmental management and climate change.  More

Disasters, Adaptation & Development

More than 700 major natural catastrophic events occur each year, and direct economic losses have increased 14-fold since the 1950s. More

Last edited: 16 April 2012