ENGAGE is a global consortium of international and multidisciplinary leading research groups, coordinated by IIASA, aiming to co-produce knowledge for designing cost-effective, technologically sound, socially and politically feasible pathways that can meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement. ENGAGE will also quantify avoided climate change impacts at the regional and national levels and identify concrete policy portfolios that maximize co-benefits and minimize trade-offs.
Knowledge co-production will be achieved through an iterative stakeholder dialogue process that will include workshops, surveys and frequent interactions and feedback among scientists, policy makers, civil society, the private sector, and other key stakeholders. ENGAGE will be inclusive of major emitters and selected developing countries which will ensure the credibility and legitimacy of the scientific and policy insights.
ENGAGE will also address a historical shortcoming of IAM-based pathways — insufficient attention to social, political, and certain technological constraints and enablers of mitigation efforts — by developing and operationalizing the concept of multidimensional feasibility of decarbonization policies and pathways. To accomplish this, ENGAGE will utilize empirical analysis, statekholder dialogue, and conceptual insights from the social sciences to develop a tool which will subsequently be used to assess and improve the feasibility of decarbonization pathways.
ENGAGE will quantify avoided climate change impacts through analysis of the exposure and associated costs for individual sectors and regions to climate change at different levels of and timing for global peak temperature. A particular focus will be on quantifying the benefits (or trade-offs) of climate policies on biodiversity, food, poverty, water, air quality, health, and employment, particularly for vulnerable populations.
Partners
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) (Austria) – Coordinator
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) (Germany)
- PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Netherlands)
- Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) (Italy)
- E3 Modelling (Greece)
- Central European University (Hungary)
- COPPE, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
- The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) (India)
- National Institute for Environmental Studies (Japan)
- NewClimate Institute (Germany)
- National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia) | until April 2022
- Wageningen University (Netherlands)
- Tsinghua University (China)
- Energy Research Institute (China)
- National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (China)
- Indian Institute of Management (IIMA) (India)
- Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) (Japan)
- Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Korea)
- University of Seoul Industry Cooperation Foundation (Korea)
- Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology – Thammasat University (Thailand)
- International University – Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)
- Bandung Institute of Technology (Indonesia)
- Jill Jaeger (Austria)
- Utrecht University (Netherlands)
- Kyoto University (Japan)
Associated Partners
- Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) (United States)
- SHURA Energy Transition Center (Turkey)
- TNO (Netherlands)
ENGAGE works in close collaboration with its sister project: Next Generation of Advanced Integrated Assessment Modelling to Support Climate Policy Making (NAVIGATE).
© European Union
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 821471 (ENGAGE).
Published papers:
Tagomori, I.S., Diuana, F.A., Baptista, L.B., Bertram, C., Dafnomilis, I., Drouet, L., Fosse, F., Fragkiadakis, D., Fricko, O. , Hooijschuur, E., Iyer, G., Kikstra, J. , Krey, V. , Luderer, G., Ou, Y., Reis, L.A., Richters, O., Rochedo, P.R.R., Vrontisi, Z., Weitzel, M., Zwerling, M., van Ruijven, B. , Schaeffer, R., & van Vuuren, D. (2026). Promising climate progress from net-zero ambitions to the Paris Agreement goal. Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02615-y.
Scheifinger, K. , Brutschin, E. , Mintz-Woo, K. , Zimm, C. , Kikstra, J. , Rogelj, J. , Żebrowski, P. , Schinko, T. , Pachauri, S. , Sovacool, B., Fritz, L., & Riahi, K. (2026). Exploring patterns of distributional justice in global climate change mitigation scenarios. npj Climate Action 5 (1) e39. 10.1038/s44168-026-00364-4.
Brutschin, E. , Bertram, C., Baptista, L.B., Bosetti, V., Daioglou, V., de Boer, H.S., Drouet, L., Fosse, F., Fragkiadakis, D., Fragkiadakis, K., Fricko, O. , Fujimori, S. , Kejun, J., Krey, V. , Kikstra, J. , Pianta, S., Pelz, S. , Riahi, K. , Richters, O., Rodrigues, R., Schaeffer, R., Scheifinger, K. , Silva, D., Tagomori, I., van Ruijven, B. , van Vuuren, D., & Vrontisi, Z. (2025). Aligning differentiated mitigation capacity with the Paris agreement goals. Environmental Research: Climate 4 (4) e045012. 10.1088/2752-5295/ae0ea5.
Rodés-Bachs, C., Drouet, L., Rafaj, P. , Tavoni, M., & Reis, L.A. (2025). Beyond the limit: The estimated air pollution damages of overshooting the temperature target. Science Advances 11 (42) eadu7590. 10.1126/sciadv.adu7590.
Kikstra, J. , Daioglou, V., Min, J. , Sferra, F., Soergel, B., Kriegler, E., Lee, H., Mastrucci, A. , Pachauri, S. , Rao, N. , Rauner, S., van Vuuren, D., Riahi, K. , van Ruijven, B. , & Rogelj, J. (2025). Closing decent living gaps in energy and emissions scenarios: introducing DESIRE. Environmental Research Letters 20 (5) e054038. 10.1088/1748-9326/adc3ad.
Brutschin, E. , Cherp, A., & Jewell, J. (2021). Failing the formative phase: The global diffusion of nuclear power is limited by national markets. Energy Research & Social Science 80 e102221. 10.1016/j.erss.2021.102221.
News
ENGAGE Summary for Policymakers
As the world faces the risks of dangerous climate change, policymakers, industry and civil society leaders are counting on Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to inform and guide strategies to deliver on the objectives of the Paris Agreement (PA) and subsequent agreements.
Stakeholder engagement in climate change solutions
Policy Brief #42, October 2023. Workshops bringing scientists together with stakeholders from various backgrounds have shown the importance of dialogue for co-designing climate pathways and highlighted the need for physical meetings and capacity building.
Feasible futures
Policy Brief #41, October 2023. Embracing the notion of feasibility, this research shows that the world will probably overshoot
1.5°C, largely owing to low institutional capacity. Energy demand reduction and electrification are two options to turn down the heat, and addressing weak institutions is crucial.
Events
Online Webinar
Climate Solutions Explorer (CSE) launch webinar
Villa Grumello, Como Lake, Italy
NAVIGATE-ENGAGE Summer School 2023
Beijing, China.