Article: News
21 September 2023
Accurate estimates and forecasts of crop area and yield play an important role in guiding policy decisions related to food security, especially in light of the growing impacts of climate change. IIASA researchers and colleagues highlight the value of integrating remote sensing and data sharing for timely agricultural information critical for food security and sustainability planning in a new paper.
Article: News
19 September 2023
Working with IIASA researchers, Ghana has adopted a citizen science approach to addressing the problem of plastic pollution in marine environments, becoming the first country to integrate this type of data on marine plastic litter into its official monitoring and reporting processes. A new study presents this innovative approach on Ghana’s citizen science journey and offers a pathway that can potentially be adopted in other countries.
Article: News
09 August 2023
IIASA researchers and experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) have conducted a systematic review of health and wellbeing-related indicators, as well as citizen science initiatives, to explore the potential of citizen science for mobilizing action toward the achievement of health and wellbeing related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the WHO’s Triple Billion Targets.
Article: News
27 June 2023
A new collection in the journal Citizen Science: Theory and Practice demonstrates the potential of citizen science to aid in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other international agreements and frameworks. The authors call for urgent dialogue between citizen science practitioners, researchers, and decision makers to build partnerships and work together to advance citizen science for a sustainable world.
Article: News
15 March 2023
Africa is the continent that will be most adversely affected by climate change. IIASA researchers are collaborating on Yoma OR – an ambitious project aimed at helping young people grow their digital skills as a first step on a journey from learning to earning using AI, blockchain, and crowdsourcing.
Article: News
25 August 2022
Citizen science is increasingly recognized as an important vehicle for democratizing science and promoting the goal of universal and equitable access to scientific data and information. IIASA researchers actively contribute to the development of this scientific approach and have recently published a primer aimed at both established and aspiring practitioners of citizen science to highlight key issues and how to address them.
Article: News
20 May 2022
In recent years, crowdsourcing, which involves recruiting members of the public to help collect data, has been tremendously helpful to provide researchers with unique and rich datasets, while also engaging the public in the process of scientific discovery. In a new study, an international team of researchers explored how crowdsourcing projects can make the most effective use of volunteer contributions.
Article: News
10 May 2022
IIASA recently instituted a new system of awards to recognize outstanding contributions towards meeting the strategic priorities and values of the institute. We are proud to announce that five IIASA research activities have been recognized in the inaugural 2022 award cycle.
Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA)
Exploratory Modeling of Human-natural Systems (EM)
Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability (NODES)
Biodiversity and Natural Resources (BNR)
Water Security (WAT)
Integrated Biosphere Futures (IBF)
Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation (BEC)
Population and Just Societies (POPJUS)
Equity and Justice (EQU)
Article: News
05 May 2022
Despite successes in reducing poverty globally in the last two decades, almost one billion people are still living without access to reliable and affordable electricity, which in turn negatively affects health and welfare, and impedes sustainable development. Knowing where these people are is crucial if aid and infrastructure are to reach them. A new IIASA-led study proposes a novel method to estimate global economic wellbeing using nighttime satellite images.
Article: News
31 March 2022
National biodiversity monitoring programs in Europe face many challenges, according to the first report of the Europe-wide EuropaBON project released today. The analysis includes data from more than 350 experts from policy, science, and environmental protection practice. The team is also drafting a proposal for a transnational monitoring of Europe's biodiversity and ecosystems.
Article: News
25 March 2022
Deforestation continues to be one of the greatest challenges in the fight against biodiversity loss and climate change. Countries all over the world have instituted protected areas, but there is still mounting human pressure on many of these areas. A new study looks at tropical deforestation and the key factors driving it.
Article: News
17 March 2022
Ahead of World Meteorological Day, you can help improve weather forecasting models with CAMALIOT, an infrastructure and app that uses GPS from smartphones to support scientific research. Join our crowdsourcing campaign on 17 March 2022 ̶ any person with access to an Android cellphone is invited to download the free app and participate.
Article: News
07 March 2022
The big data revolution is here, but what does it mean for creating a life-supporting sustainable food system? Can technological innovation help us feed the world and protect against biodiversity loss? IIASA hosts this special episode of the Prophets, Wizards & The Quest to Value Nature podcast.
Article: News
25 November 2021
Monitoring progress on our way to successfully achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is key to their achievement, but there are significant data gaps that make this crucial exercise difficult. A new IIASA-led study explored the use of a citizen science tool known as Picture Pile to see how it could contribute to SDG monitoring.