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The joint project “Integrated modeling for robust management of food-energy-water-land use nexus security and sustainable development” between National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine (NASU), and IIASA for the period from 2022 to 2026 is the continuation and the new stage of the joint NASU-IIASA project “Integrated robust management of food-energy-water-land-social nexus for sustainable development” completed in the period from 2017 to 2021 (IIASA Policy brief, 2017; Zagorodny et al., 2013, 2014, 2018, 2020). In the new research period, we address urgent problems of integrated modeling and policy analysis through models’ linkage and distributed optimization of disintegrated distributed food-water-energy-environmental models, precautionary and adaptive dealing with systemic risks and their implications for Food-Energy-Water-Environmental-Social (FEWES) systems security NEXUS management in Ukraine and globally.

Learning from COVID-19 and other global threats, the TwR project aims to propose levers of change to trigger systemic transformations in societal decision-making systems which should radically improve both the resilience of our society to sustainability threats and its agility to adapt to new opportunities and needs.    

Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) are invaluable for understanding the biosphere. However, as currently implemented by the international research community, these models suffer from a challenging accumulation of uncertainty. This project aims to address this problem by developing the foundations of a new generation of models centered on a “missing law” – adaptation and optimization principles rooted in natural selection.

Unanticipated migration inflows can have positive and negative economic and social consequences depending on policies implemented by the recipient country to cope with the manifold challenges. Model-based scientific assessments of in-migration on a country's national economy are hence needed, as is meaningful stakeholder deliberation of alternative policies to support the integration of refugees in ways that contribute to resilient and sustainable societies.

Towards sustainable food and land-use systems: The Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land, and Energy (FABLE) Consortium.

Co-Inform project deals with the phenomena of misinformation and its impact on decision-making processes. Misinformation is a common problem for all media but it is especially exacerbated in the digital social media due to the speed and ease with which it can spread.

The Systemic Risk and Network Dynamics project will examine how different types of systems, ranging from financial to ecological and beyond, are at risk of cascades of failures. As well as assessing this risk, this cross-cutting project will develop tools to help prevent such events.