IIASA Alumnus Farid Karimi's recent publication

Farid Karimi was a 2014 YSSPer in IIASA's Risk and Vulnerability Program under the supervision of Nadejda Komendantova-Amann and Michael Thompson and currently is a  PhD Candidate at the University of Helsinki in the Environmental Policy Research Group (EPRG).  A paper based on his work during YSSP 2014 has recently been published co-authored by Nadejda Komendantova-Amann.  Farid shares with us in his own words the importance of this topic and the impact the YSSP Program had for him.

"In spite of two decades of prominent discourse on sustainable development, much remains to be achieved. From my point of view, one of the most significant obstacles hampering the realization of the goal of sustainable development is the communication gap that lies between policy makers and scientists. I believe that there is lack of a common language, a shared narrative, between these two key stakeholders. What is required, therefore, is a bridge-builder that understands the language of both policy makers and scientists. In the other words, we need some “interpreters” who have sufficient expertise in these respective areas to be able to convey the ideas of the scientific community to the policy makers and vice versa. I believe organizations such as the IIASA can act as one of those “bridge builders”.

I had the chance to join the IIASA’s Risk and Vulnerability Program during YSSP 2014 and cherished this unique opportunity. I committed myself to broadening my knowledge and sharing my achievements and experiences with other academics and researchers. The opportunity to visit distinguished international experts and expand my professional career has been a breakthrough in my research career. Among others, I would like to acknowledge my supervisors, Dr. Nadejda Komendantova and Prof. Michael Thompson, and IIASA’s Library Manager Dr. Michaela Rossini, whom I owe a lot to. The YSSP Program is really not limited to the three months one spends at IIASA because the benefits exceed far beyond that. My research during my very fruitful summer at IIASA was just recently published under the title of “Understanding experts’ views and risk perceptions on carbon capture and storage in three European countries”. In this paper, we discuss that implementation of new technologies, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), requires not only economic and technical capacities but also an understanding of social factors. These factors include experts’ views and risk perceptions. Understanding them will contribute to the risk governance of CCS by demonstrating who is concerned about what and why with respect to CCS and how risk perception and stakeholders’ concerns vary in different countries." 

Last edited: 01 August 2017