IIASA News

IIASA's news center provides information on our research and related activities.

For more news, follow IIASA on Twitter

2017

14 December 2017
Israel joins IIASA

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) announced today that Israel has become its newest member country. Israel joins 24 other countries whose National Member Organization’s representatives constitute the IIASA Governing Council.  More

11 December 2017
Prototype land cover map of Africa: Great start but more accuracy needed

The latest land cover map of Africa has exceptionally high resolution, picking out features at just 20 m. However, its detail does not reflect its accuracy, which lies at 65%, IIASA researchers have discovered, not as high as many had hoped.  More

30 November 2017
IIASA researchers among most highly cited scientists

IIASA energy and air quality researchers have been recognized again for their outstanding contribution to scientific literature in the field of geosciences.  More

06 November 2017
Two thirds of major emitting countries not on track to reach their climate targets

A new studyconcludes that 16 out of 25 analysed countries and regions are not on track to achieve the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) targets they have set for themselves on greenhouse gas emissions.  More

06 November 2017
International experts present ten-point memorandum on tackling climate change ahead of UN Climate Change Conference

A ten-point memorandum defines key global challenges for the coming years and calls upon state and non-governmental actors to accelerate their efforts to tackle climate change.  More

31 October 2017
Climate change policy depends on how we value future wellbeing

Should policymakers be aiming to increase the number of people that are happy or the average happiness regardless of population size? However we choose to value the wellbeing of future generations, a smaller population could save tens of billions of dollars annually on climate change prevention policies.  More

27 October 2017
Switch from wood to gas for cooking is not a climate problem

Switching from using fuelwood to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking would provide modest climate benefits, but the extent of these depend on whether the wood is renewably sourced, and if the short-lived emissions from burning wood are taken into account, according to a new analysis focused on India.  More

17 October 2017
Arctic Futures Initiative partners with Arctic Circle

The IIASA-led Arctic Futures Initiative (AFI) has entered into a unique partnership with the Arctic Circle. This alliance combines the expertise of IIASA, a world leader in systems analysis, with the convening power of the Arctic Circle, the largest network of international dialogue and cooperation on the future of the Arctic.  More

06 October 2017
Application of IIASA approach to UN projections shows less aging

The executive summary of the UN’s report on population aging, released today, incorporates new measures of aging developed at IIASA—leading to more optimistic projections for aging populations around the world.  More

05 October 2017
IIASA Governing Council elects new Chair

Professor Michael Clegg of the USA has been elected as Council Chair by the IIASA Governing Council, the institute’s governing body.  More

02 October 2017
IIASA celebrates 45 years

Since its early days as an East-West institute crossing the Cold War divide, IIASA has developed into a leading international institute addressing global challenges of the 21st century.  More

02 October 2017
Win-win strategies for climate and food security

Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture and forestry sectors could lead to increased food prices—but new research identifies strategies that could help mitigate climate change while avoiding steep hikes in food prices.  More

26 September 2017
Land, forest, and cropland data now available

Three new data sets, developed with input from citizen scientists and the IIASA scientific network, have been fully documented and published in a new Nature open access journal.  More

19 September 2017
Citizen science targets land-use change in Austria

FotoQuest GO—a citizen science campaign aimed at collecting observations of land use and land cover across Austria—launches this week. Researchers hope it will bring a leap forward in community-based land-use change monitoring.  More

18 September 2017
5,000 deaths annually from dieselgate in Europe

Excess emissions from diesel cars cause about 5,000 premature deaths annually across Europe, a new study shows.  More

18 September 2017
New hopes for limiting warming to 1.5°C

Significant emission reductions are required if we are to achieve one of the key goals of the Paris Agreement, and limit the increase in global average temperatures to 1.5°C, a new study warns.  More

24 August 2017
Expanding systems analysis expertise in Southern Africa

The second annual Southern African Systems Analysis Centre’s Emerging Researchers Program has been launched. It focuses on training young researchers in Southern Africa in systems analysis methods and research skills.  More

21 August 2017
Before the flood: What drives preparedness?

More targeted efforts are needed from both the public and private insurance sectors in order to encourage people to take action to reduce their risk of flood damage, according to a new study of three European countries.  More

21 July 2017
Better farm water management could help achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals

Around 40% of irrigated agriculture is unsustainable, according to a new study. However, better farm water management could help reconcile global water, environment, and food targets.  More

02 July 2017
IIASA and China

IIASA Director General and CEO, Professor Dr. Pavel Kabat, made an official visit to the People’s Republic of China from 2-7 July 2017 to participate in the international symposium "Funding Science and People Cooperation for a Prosperous Belt and Road" which was organized by IIASA National Member Organization the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).  More

29 June 2017
Second place for IIASA in think tank rankings

The International Center for Climate Governance has ranked IIASA second place in their annual global listing of top think tanks for climate change economics and policy.  More

27 June 2017
Safeguarding sustainability through forest certification mapping

How can we ensure forest protection and sustainable forest biomass production at the same time? A first-ever global map of certified forest areas, based on a participatory and collaborative mapping approach, contributes to the answer.  More

26 June 2017
The costs of phasing down hydrofluorocarbons

The Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol aims to phase down the consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), chemicals that have strong global warming impacts. IIASA research provides the first analysis of costs and the importance of electricity savings and technological development for keeping implementation costs low.  More

22 June 2017
Mathematical confirmation: Rewiring financial networks reduces systemic risk

A proposed tax on systemically risky financial transactions could reduce the risk of financial system crashes by spurring financial networks to reshape in more resilient ways.  More

21 June 2017
An end to population aging in China, Germany, USA

New measures of aging, combined with UN population projections, show that population aging is likely to end before 2100 in China, Germany, and the USA.  More

20 June 2017
Education and health are priorities in sustainable development

A clear priority focus on human capital—health and education—together with maintaining functioning environmental services offer a vision for an achievable and sustainable future, argues Wolfgang Lutz in his PNAS Inaugural Article.  More

20 June 2017
Memorandum from the IIASA Council and the IIASA Director General

IIASA Council welcomes the report of the independent Institutional Review of IIASA, and its recommendations to further strengthen IIASA's unique strengths and global reach.  More

15 June 2017
Water management interventions push scarcity downstream

Human interventions to harness water resources, such as reservoirs, dams, and irrigation measures, have increased water availability for much of the global population, but at the same time, swept water scarcity problems downstream.  More

12 June 2017
Optimal harvests without top-down planning

From the air, Bali’s rice terraces look like colorful mosaics, because farmers plant their fields at different times. A new study shows that the resulting fractal patterns actually lead to optimal harvests, without overarching management.  More

08 June 2017
Another record-breaking year for renewable energy

A new report shows a record power capacity of 161 gigawatts added in 2016, even as less capital was invested.  More

06 June 2017
Ambiguous pledges leave large uncertainty under Paris climate agreement

Emission reduction pledges made by individual countries under the Paris Agreement leave a wide range of possible climate outcomes, according to new research. Without stronger pledges, the study shows, the climate goals may not be possible to achieve.  More

02 June 2017
IIASA staff set the pace in bike commuting

During the month of May, IIASA staff members rode their bicycles over 15,000 kilometers to and from the office, as part of a national campaign to encourage more sustainable commuting options.  More

17 May 2017
Synergies and trade-offs in the Sustainable Development Goals

Interactions between the 17 Sustainable Development Goals can lead to synergies as well as trade-offs. A new report, with major contributions from IIASA scientists, provides a detailed analysis of four goals and their influence on other targets.  More

15 May 2017
Excess diesel emissions bring global health and environmental impacts

Excess NOx emissions from diesel engines have been linked to approximately 38,000 premature deaths worldwide in 2015—mostly in the European Union, China, and India.  More

11 May 2017
Vienna Energy Forum to contribute to successful implementation of SDGs and Paris Agreement

The discussion at this year’s Vienna Energy Forum served as an important contribution to the debate and review of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris climate agreement and their successful implementation, said participants at the event taking place in the capital of Austria.  More

10 May 2017
Acting now on climate could bring multiple benefits for sustainable development

Fast action on near-term warming will provide many potential benefits to achieving the global Sustainable Development Goal, according to new research from scientists at IIASA, in the USA and Europe.  More

02 May 2017
Manfred Strubegger 1951-2017

It is with great sadness that IIASA marks the passing of Manfred Strubegger. An outstanding scientist in the Energy Program, he was instrumental in the development of the program’s core modeling framework.  More

28 April 2017
Citizen science campaign to aid disaster response

For the next few weeks researchers are testing a new system to aid disaster damage mapping, providing much-needed real-time data to help communities recover and rebuild after disaster.  More

27 April 2017
Synthetic gas would cut air pollution but worsen climate damage in China

For China, synthetic natural gas represents a trade-off between reducing air pollution, but increasing greenhouse gas emissions, according to new IIASA research conducted in collaboration with scientists in China and the USA.  More

20 April 2017
Restoring tropical forests for a sustainable future

The new RESTORE+ project brings together ten international partners to develop policy-oriented solutions for tropical forest restoration in Indonesia, Brazil, and the Congo.  More

13 April 2017
Next ten years critical for achieving climate change goals

In order to have a good chance of meeting the limits set by the Paris Agreement, it will be necessary to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions while preserving carbon sinks, with net emissions peaking in the next ten years, according to a new study.  More

07 April 2017
New ERC grant to explore human wellbeing as criterion for sustainable development

IIASA World Population Program Director Wolfgang Lutz has received a new grant from the European Research Council. Lutz is scientific director of the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW), and professor of applied statistics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). These institutions are part of the Wittgenstein Center, which Lutz leads.  More

05 April 2017
Small and medium farms are essential to sustain quality of global food supply

Small and medium farms produce more than half of the food globally, and produce the vast majority of food and nutrients in low income countries, according to a new study that maps global nutrient production from farms worldwide.  More

05 April 2017
Wealth, culture, and cost affect household appliance purchases

As incomes rise, people buy more big appliances like washing machines, refrigerators, and televisions. But the link between income and appliance ownership is more complicated than is assumed.  More

03 April 2017
Young scientists 2017 selected

The IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program has selected the successful applicants for 2017, which marks the 40th year of the program.  More

29 March 2017
Global food supply at risk from agricultural misuse of nonrenewable water

The rising use of unsustainable water supplies by international food producers is putting global food and water supplies at risk and could cause basic food prices to skyrocket, suggests a new study from international researchers.  More

27 March 2017
New international banking rules would not prevent another financial crisis

The Basel III regulatory framework, as planned, will not reduce systemic risk in the financial sector, according to new research. Instead, regulations should aim to increase the resilience of financial networks.  More

14 March 2017
IIASA expands international postdoc opportunities

In cooperation with National Member Organizations in Brazil, the Republic of Korea, and Mexico, IIASA welcomes nine early-career scientists to conduct research at the institute.  More

09 March 2017
Investment key in adapting to climate change in West Africa

Climate change will likely have negative impacts on food production in West Africa, but a new study provides insights on how strategic planning by decision makers could ease or exacerbate food security challenges in the region.  More

07 March 2017
Traveling droughts bring new possibilities for prediction

Droughts can travel hundreds to thousands of kilometers from where they started, like a slow-moving hurricane. A new study sheds light on how these droughts evolve in space and time, bringing vital new insight for water managers.  More

06 March 2017
How nature creates forest diversity

Forest ecologists have long sought to understand why so many different species of trees can coexist in the same niche. A modeling study is now providing clues.  More

01 March 2017
Climate research needs greater focus on human populations

How climate change will affect future populations will depend to a great extent on people’s capacity to adapt to changing conditions. Such characteristics can be forecast in the long term, using well-established demographic methods, say IIASA researchers.  More

16 February 2017
Preferential trade agreements enhance global trade at the expense of its resilience

The global commodity trade is a complex system where its network structure, which may arise from bilateral and multilateral agreements, affects its growth and resilience. At time of economic shocks, redundancy in this system is vital to the resilience of growth.  More

13 February 2017
Living standards lag behind economic growth

Even as average incomes rise in developing countries, access to sanitation and clean energy have yet to reach the poorest people, a new study shows. But there is room for optimism.  More

03 February 2017
Study traces black carbon sources in the Russian Arctic

Transport and residential heating could be responsible for a greater contribution of black carbon in the Russian Arctic compared to gas flaring or power plants, according to new research.  More

01 February 2017
Oil production releases more methane than previously thought

Emissions of methane and ethane from oil production have been substantially higher than previously estimated, particularly before 2005.  More

30 January 2017
New momentum in low-carbon energy

Low-carbon energy is gaining momentum worldwide and is globally reducing carbon dioxide pollution, but unless new technologies are deployed, this momentum could be threatened.  More

16 January 2017
Trade-offs between economic growth and deforestation

In many developing countries, economic growth and deforestation seem to go hand in hand—but the links are not well understood. In a new study, researchers use an innovative methodology to quantify the relationship.  More

16 January 2017
Income and energy efficiency to drive future greenhouse gas emissions

Variation in projected long-term carbon dioxide emissions are primarily driven by future income and energy efficiency, according to new research.  More

13 January 2017
Bioenergy policy with forest protection better for climate mitigation

Greenhouse gas emissions from the land-use sector will be lower if the rising demand for bioenergy is met with worldwide protection for areas important for biodiversity and carbon storage.  More

11 January 2017
Grasslands hold potential for increased food production

Managing grazing on grasslands in a more efficient way could significantly increase global milk and meat production or free up land for other uses.  More

09 January 2017
Tool helps cities to plan electric bus routes, and calculate the benefits

An IIASA model helped inform a new tool for cities to optimize electric bus systems, which has now been used in Sweden’s first wireless charging bus system, launched in December.  More

09 January 2017
Changing rainfall patterns linked to water security in India

Changes in precipitation, which are linked to the warming of the Indian Ocean, are the main reason for recent changes in groundwater storage in India.  More

04 January 2017
Awards for young scientists

Four exceptional young scientists from the 2016 Young Scientists Summer Program will receive funding to continue their research projects at IIASA in 2017.  More




Print this page

Last edited: 12 July 2018

IIASA on Twitter

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