Annual Report 2024: Strategic Initiatives Highlights

The Biodiversity and Land-use Objectives for Optimal Management (bloom) project, launched in January 2025, is a One Health, interdisciplinary collaboration using ecological, epidemiological, and economic modeling to investigate zoonotic disease spillovers. The aim is to develop a holistic framework allowing for the assessment of ecosystem conservation policies and increasing their effectiveness in reducing the likelihood of disease spillover events. The broader effects on economic development, cultural acceptance, and distributions of wildlife populations will also be evaluated. The project will be applied to a case study of Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone, with potential extension to Côte d’Ivoire. This includes a comprehensive assessment of existing policies, stakeholder dynamics, and local cultural practices. Project findings will be disseminated through a stakeholder workshop in the case study country. The project is set to conclude in December 2027. 

Launched in November 2024, the Wildfires and Climate Change in the Boreal Zone (Fire&Ice) project focuses on analyzing the effects of climate change on wildfire patterns in the boreal region. Fire dynamics, ignition sources, forest impacts, and health risks will be examined through advanced modeling of fire behavior, population data, and emissions. Researchers involved in the project will work closely with IIASA member organizations and local colleagues. Results will support the development of climate-smart policies and risk reduction strategies to build more resilient communities under increasing wildfire pressure. The project will run until 30 April 2027.   

The Resilience of Ecosystem Services provided by Intact and Sustainably managed Terrestrial ecosystems (RESIST) initiative aims to develop a multidisciplinary modeling framework that integrates ecological and socioeconomic systems to guide sustainable ecosystem management. By drawing on IIASA's systems perspective, RESIST addresses complex science-policy challenges, such as enhancing ecosystem-based mitigation and reducing land degradation. The project has advanced significantly through collaboration with several IIASA member organizations. In India, local field campaigns support biodiversity restoration research, while in Brazil, a data-sharing agreement with the Amazon FACE project has informed model calibration. Additionally, in China, local collaborators contributed to a proposal, which has been granted funding by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. 

The Tools for Raising and UnderStanding Trust in systems science through citizen engagement (TRUST) Strategic Initiative aims to enhance trust in science by promoting participation-driven research, lowering barriers for scientists to adopt such methods, and providing empirical evidence of their impact. It supports IIASA’s strategic goal of fostering participatory processes, with researchers from multiple programs collaborating to strengthen public engagement and credibility in science. The project started in October 2022 and is set to be completed by December 2025. 

Started in September 2021 and completed in November 2024, the fairSTREAM project endeavored to integrate fairness into sustainability policy development at the nexus of food, water, and biodiversity. The transdisciplinary research design integrated and upscaled local knowledge in a mixed methods approach coupling agent-based, hydrological, and biodiversity models. The primary case study focused on India's Bhima basin, where researchers collaborated with local institutions to address challenges like drought, biodiversity loss, and equitable water distribution. A key output of the project is a toolkit of participatory methods designed to facilitate knowledge co-production. At IIASA the project initiated cross-institute work on transdisciplinary research practice, while in India, insights were adopted by the Upper Bhima Collective responsible for 'Conservation Action Planning for Freshwater Ecosystems’. 

The Just Transitions to Net-Zero Carbon Emissions for All (JustTrans4ALL) project ran from September 2020 to August 2024, aiming to advance how justice is reflected in IIASA’s net-zero transition research with high wellbeing. Using ethical reasoning, the team developed a justice framework to guide empirical analysis on multiple deprivations and scenario development. The project resulted in 18 publications (with more forthcoming) and supported five Young Scientists Summer Program participants from IIASA member countries, two interns, and one postdoc. Outputs included lectures and summer school seminars in IIASA member countries, as well as country-specific spin-offs of the project supported by IIASA member organizations in Korea and China. Over 70 presentations were delivered at events across various disciplines – half of these in member countries – engaging stakeholders from local activists to climate negotiators. The project fostered interdisciplinary collaboration across IIASA programs, deepening understanding of justice in transition pathways and scenario design.