10 October 2016

IIASA-IHOPE workshop to formulate IHOPE science plan and establish research collaborations

The Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (IHOPE) Scientific Steering Committee visited IIASA for a three-day workshop to meet with IIASA researchers, and to get their input and guidance on the formulation of IHOPE’s new science plan. The workshop was also an opportunity to establish joint research collaborations.

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IHOPE is a global network of researchers and research projects that link human and Earth system history through the integration of knowledge and resources from the biophysical and the social sciences, and the humanities. The IHOPE project is part of Future Earth, a research initiative on global environment change and global sustainability, and it is based at Uppsala University in Sweden.

On the first day of the workshop, the IHOPE Scientific Steering Committee, together with senior fellows from their developing network, met with IIASA program directors who introduced the IIASA research programs, and presented IIASA research highlights. In the afternoon, IHOPE participants provided insight into their work by delivering presentations on complex systems research. This was followed by a joint feedback session between IHOPE and IIASA research staff to reflect on all presentations, draw conclusions, and discuss research collaborations. The next two days gave the participants the opportunity to discuss potential scientific partnerships in more depth, and formulate the new IHOPE science plan, with input from IIASA.

Participation in this workshop was by invitation only. 

Tentative list of presentations by IHOPE researchers

  • Joseph Tainter (Utah State University, USA): Problem Solving and the Evolution of Complexity
  • Anna Shoemaker (Uppsala University, Sweden): Resilience in East African Landscapes Project: Developing a multidisciplinary approach to identifying critical thresholds and sustainable trajectories in the past, present and future
  • Joel Gunn (University of North Carolina-Greensboro, USA) and Christian Isendahl (Gothenburg University, Sweden): Studying Complex Adaptive Systems with Factoring and Simulation: Mutual Modulations of Methods
  • Valentina Caracuta (University of Lecce, Italy): From foraging to farming in SW Asia: Climate, Technology and Resilience at the transition between the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene
  • John Finnigan (Australian National University): Planetary Dynamics and Critical Thresholds
  • Carole Crumley (Uppsala University, Sweden): Heterarchy & the Analysis of Complex Societies
  • Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist (Stockholm University, Sweden): Recent advancements in paleoclimatology and past societal changes
  • Jed Kaplan (University of Lausanne, Switzerland): Modeling continental-scale human-environment interactions in the preindustrial Holocene
  • Tim Kohler (Washington State University, USA) and Tom McGovern: Complex Systems Approaches to the Past: North America and the North Atlantic

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Last edited: 28 September 2016

IIASA-IHOPE workshop 10-12 October

Tentative Agenda (PDF)

IIASA-IHOPE workshop

Tentative List of Participants (PDF)

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313