IIASA Deputy Director General Karen Lips represented the Institute at last week’s Austria–Vietnam High-Technology and Innovation Forum in Vienna. Following her participation in a high-level panel discussion on digital transformation, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) to boost collaboration in AI and digital transformation.
With climate change intensifying and billions of people still lacking basic necessities, addressing both challenges simultaneously is not only possible but essential. New research highlights that meeting global climate targets while ensuring decent living standards for all can be achieved, provided that emissions reductions are implemented quickly and decisively.
A foresight study on plausible futures of industrial development in Kyrgyzstan conducted by IIASA researchers has been featured in a joint report by the International Science Council and the UN Futures Lab titled, Futures thinking and strategic foresight in action: Insights from the Global South.
IIASA and partners received the award for pioneering the use of citizen science and AI to address national data gaps on marine litter in Ghana, the first country to integrate such data into its official statistics and to monitor and use it for monitoring and reporting on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The OJEong Resilience Institute at Korea University (OJERI) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) successfully held the OJERI–IIASA Symposium 2025 on April 28–29 at IIASA in Laxenburg, Austria. With the theme “Forest Fire and Water-Land Management under the Carbon (Emission) Cycle”, the symposium aimed to continue the strong partnership between IIASA and OJERI@KU in advancing cross-disciplinary research for sustainable forest and land-water management.
Wealthy individuals have a higher carbon footprint. A new study published in Nature Climate Change quantifies the climate outcomes of these inequalities. It finds that the world’s wealthiest 10% are responsible for two thirds of observed global warming since 1990 and the resulting increases in climate extremes such as heatwaves and droughts.
IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program Director, Petr Havlík, has been awarded an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) by KU Leuven, one of Europe’s most renowned universities, in recognition of his exceptional contributions to global research in agricultural, food, climate, and environmental economics.
Can nature restoration and economic productivity go hand in hand? A new study finds that the EU’s ambitious Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) is essential to achieving biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation targets and that it could be implemented without compromising the supply of agricultural and forest products.
A new special issue of the Elsevier journal, Environmental Development, highlights pioneering research addressing the continent's most pressing environmental and development challenges. The issue is the result of an ongoing collaboration between IIASA and a growing network of African and international research partners, including the IIASA Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Member Organization (SSARMO).
The prestigious international forum took place from February 10 to 14 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. It brought together leading academics, policymakers, and industry experts to discuss critical global challenges in sustainability, food security, and risk management. It was also endorsed by international scientific associations in agricultural economics, agribusiness, engineering, and information research including European Association of Agricultural Economists, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, Associzzione Internazionale di Economia Alimentare e Agro-Industriale, International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering and International Network for IT in Agriculture, Food and the Environment.