2014 Featured Videos 

VODCAST - 18 December 2014

IIASA Ball 2014, Polonaise

On Thursday, 18 December, the traditional IIASA STAC End of the Year Ball took place at the Conference Center in Laxenburg. The ball was opened with the traditional Polonaise performed by IIASA colleagues.

Note that the Vienna Ball of Sciences 2015 takes place on the 31s of January.

VODCAST - 10 November 2014

IIASA/OeAW Public Lecture Series, Lecture 5: Obstacles and Opportunities in Environmental Management by Simon Levin

Environmental management presents major challenges, and a variety of obstacles stand in the pathways to solutions. These obstacles, however, also present opportunities, and Simon Levin explores some of these.

VODCAST - 03 November 2014

Professor Dr. Pavel Kabat @ SA-YSSP 2014

Professor Dr. Pavel Kabat opens the third Southern African Young Scientists Summer Program (SA-YSSP). The University of the Free State, Bloemfontein welcomes 28 PhD students from 17 countries for a three-month long capacity building program modeled on the YSSP. Kabat also announces the three scholarship winners from the 2013/14 SA-YSSP, who will be offered 3 and 6 month fellowships to continue their research here at IIASA.

VODCAST - 20 October 2014

Wolfgang Lutz: World population and human capital in the twenty-first century

Demographers from the United Nations Population Division and several universities published a recently published paper in Science that argues the world population is unlikely to stop growing this century. They calculate that there is an 80% probability that world population, now 7.2 billion, will increase to between 9.6 and 12.3 billion in 2100, with the median at 10.9 billion. Contrary to the UN projections, the IIASA medium (most likely) scenario indicates that world population will increase to 9.2 billion by 2050, peak at 9.4 billion around 2070 and start a slow decline to 9.0 billion by the end of the century.

MULTIMEDIA - 30 September 2014

ACTION2020: Business Solutions for Forward-Thinking Companies

Peter Bakker, President and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and member of the Alpbach-Laxenburg Group spoke at the ISGNI conference in Laxenburg on 30^th September. His talk discussed the way in which the scientific and business communities can work better together to improve their ability to achieve common goals, and stressed the importance of scientific research in setting the priorities for sustainable development, and for business then taking action.

During the lecture, Peter Bakker announced that the WBCSD along with IIASA and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network will organize a series of roundtables to identify the business and technological solutions to climate change and the barriers to these solutions taking place.

VODCAST - 14 July 2014

Jesus Crespo Cuaresma, Wolfgang Lutz

The demography of human development and climate
change vulnerability

This video was recorded at the joint Wittgenstein Centre/IUSSP International Seminar entitled "Demographic Differential Vulnerability to Natural Disasters in the Context of Climate Change Adaptation" that includes includes Session 9 on "Projecting vulnerability through the lens of human capital" from the third day. 

VODCAST - 07 July 2014

Nebojsa Nakicenovic

Nebojsa Nakicenovic - Disruptive Energy Technologies

The Yale Climate & Energy Institute (YCEI) held its 5th Annual Conference: Energy/Future: A critical look at the world of energy in 2030. Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Deputy Director General and Deputy CEO, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) talks about the emergence and diffusion of disruptive energy technologies. 

VODCAST - 27 June 2014

Prof. Dr. Jos Engelen

Biographical background and perspectives of IIASA’s Council Member for the Netherlands

Prof. Dr. Jos Engelen heads the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, holds a part-time position at the National Institute for Particle Physics, and is the former director of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

 In his lecture, Engelen focused on the research and history of CERN, where he served as director for four years, and worked at for more than 10 years in total. Most recently, CERN researchers are known for proving the existence of the Higgs boson, which was postulated by physicists as part of the Standard Model in the 1970’s but only identified in 2012.

VODCAST - 23 June 2014

Prof. Dr. Prabhat Ranjan

From particle physics to brain prosthetics

Prof. Dr. Prabhat Ranjan is the Executive Director of India's Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council and member of the IIASA Council.

VODCAST - 02 June 2014

The Future Population of our Planet: Why Education Makes the Decisive Difference

Many people fear that the world's population will continue to grow as fast as it has for the past decades leading to food and water shortages, environmental degradation, and exacerbating poverty. IIASA's leading demographer, Wolfgang Lutz, will show how universal primary and secondary education for all young women on this plant will not only slow population growth, but also generate greater economic growth, improve people's health, reduce population's vulnerability to natural disasters, and enhance democracy.

VODCAST - 09 May 2014

Transformations towards Sustainable Energy Futures

The present path of reliance on fossil fuels for the world's energy needs poses major challenges including soaring greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing energy security, air pollution with resulting health problems, and around three billion people without access to clean, modern energy. IIASA's Deputy Director General, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, explores these energy challenges, describes different pathways to overcome them and the opportunities to achieve a fundamental transformation toward a sustainable energy future.

VODCAST - 30 April 2014

IIASA

IIASA Alumni Day 2014

IIASA invited 2000 alumni from around the world to Laxenburg on 29 April to meet former colleagues and share memories, experience, and stories of success and connect with current IIASA researchers and staff. The above is the full length recorded live stream for those who could not participate in person.

VODCAST - 28 April 2014

IIASA

IIASA Alumni: Petr Aven

Petr Aven tells of his time at IIASA as a young scientist in 1977 and a research scholar in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when he worked with an international team of economists to develop a blueprint for the economic transition of the Soviet Union as part of IIASA's Economic Transitions and Integration project. Following his time at IIASA, Aven became Minister of Foreign Economic Relations for the Russian Federation from 1991-1992, and President of Russia's largest private bank, Alfa-Bank, from 1994 to June 2011. Today he is Chairman of the Supervisory Board at the Alfa Banking Group and Board Member of Alfa-Bank Russia.

VODCAST - 23 April 2014

IIASA

IIASA Alumni: Ruth Steiner

IIASA Alumni: Ruth Steiner shares memories from her time at IIASA as Head of the Personnel Department from 1973-1983.

MULTIMEDIA - 14 April 2014

IIASA

IIASA Alumni: Kurt Komarek

IIASA Alumni: Professor Dr. Kurt Komarek, IIASA Council Member 1991-2009, Interim Council Chair, IIASA Council 1997-1998, Acting Deputy Director 2001-2002

VODCAST - 31 March 2014

IIASA

IIASA Alumni: Dr. Jill and Dr. Fredy Jäger

Dr. Jill Jäger, Energy Program/Deputy Director 1976--1978 / 1994--1998 / 2003-2004 and her husband Dr. Fredy Jäger, Energy Program 1976-1978 share memories of their time at IIASA. We invite all IIASA alumni - staff and researchers - to Laxenburg to meet former colleagues and share memories, experience and stories of success while connecting with current IIASA researchers and staff on 29 April. Please help us spread the word among alumni and share the event with colleagues you met at IIASA!

MULTIMEDIA - 10 March 2014

New Measures of Age and Aging

Sergei Scherbov presents his groundbreaking research on Aging at the El Colegio de México. The title of the presentation is the "New Measures of Age and Aging." 

MULTIMEDIA - 03 March 2014

IIASA

Global human capital: Integrating education and population

Wolfgang Lutz discussed border issues on demographic research and projections by educational level. The presentation is entitled "Global human capital: Integrating education and population."

MULTIMEDIA - 24 February 2014

IIASA

DSDS14: Prof.Dr. Pavel Kabat

14th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS): IIASA Director General and CEO Prof. Dr. Pavel Kabat gave a plenary presentation at the 14th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, which took place from 6-8 February 2014. He emphasized that direct funding is needed for innovation in sustainability. It is becoming increasingly clear that the challenges the world faces in respect of energy, water and food security are interlinked. Consequently, if strategies have to be developed for tackling one or the other aspect of this integrated challenge we would need to consider comprehensive and critical aspects of managing supply and demand for energy, water, and food in a manner that ensures security in each sector.

MULTIMEDIA - 17 February 2014

IIASA

A new cost estimate for universal energy

What are the pathways, policies, costs and benefits to achieving total rural electrification by 2030? Energy access is a key challenge for developing countries in particular, and one of the major questions addressed by the GEA.

MULTIMEDIA - 12 February 2014

What is Energy Security?

Energy security refers to the robustness, sovereignty, and resilience of energy systems. The Global Energy Assessment provides analysis to help countries maintain their energy security while meeting other energy challenges.

MULTIMEDIA - 03 February 2014

IIASA

What are the strategies to transform the energy system?

Transformation toward decarbonized and clean energy systems requires fundamental changes in fossil fuel use, which dominates the current energy landscape. Strong policies, including effective pricing of greenhouse gas emissions, will be needed to fundamentally change the fossil energy system.

MULTIMEDIA - 21 January 2014

IIASA

How do we assess possible energy futures?

This video provides perspectives from Global Energy Assessment authors on how the assessment's findings can be applied to specific policies and questions. The Global Energy Assessment provides a comprehensive look at energy challenges and the pathways towards meeting these challenges. In this section, GEA authors describe how the findings from the report can inform policy, from energy access to urban planning.