H.E. Ambassador Jaideep Mazumdar, Permanent Representative of the Republic of India to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna, recently visited IIASA to meet with IIASA Director General Albert van Jaarsveld.
Albert van Jaarsveld welcomed Ambassador Mazumdar and provided an overview of the institute's current research agenda and main priorities. Ongoing scientific cooperation between IIASA and its multiple research partners in India as well as ways to strengthen this cooperation further were also discussed.
Both the IIASA Director General and the ambassador highly valued the outcomes of the international conference co-organized by IIASA and the Indian Technology Information, Forecasting, and Assessment Council (TIFAC) with partners from China, Iran, Japan, and Jordan in New Delhi in August 2022 to celebrate the institute's 50th anniversary and 75 years of India's Independence. The conference built on the expertise and interlinkages between the systems analysis communities in Asia and enabled discussion and analysis of transformative approaches to achieving sustainability across multiple stakeholders, sectors, and regions.
Albert van Jaarsveld informed Ambassador Mazumbar about the institute's scientific input to support the Indian G20 Presidency, including the Commentary on accelerating universal access to clean cooking services, and the ongoing work on air quality management in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) region, for example, through contributions to a recent publication by The World Bank and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
During the meeting, IIASA capacity building opportunities for Indian researchers, such as the Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) and Postdoctoral Fellowships, were also reviewed.
Ambassador Mazumdar was accompanied by Atomic Energy and Science and Technology Counselor Mahesh Subramanian, while IIASA was represented by Interim Deputy Director General for Science Wolfgang Lutz, Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group Leader Shonali Pachauri, and Senior Research Scholar in the Pollution Management Research Group Pallav Purohit.
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L-R: IIASA Interim Deputy Director General for Science Wolfgang Lutz, Senior Research Scholar in IIASA Pollution Management Research Group Pallav Purohit, IIASA Director General Albert van Jaarsveld, Indian Ambassador Jaideep Mazumdar, Counselor at the Embassy of India Mahesh Subramanian, and Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group Leader Shonali Pachauri.
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