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Participants in the inaugural Raiffa Academy return to universities, governments and international organizations with new tools, new collaborators and shared approaches.

What happens when an El Niño forecast reaches social media? Drawing on two recent studies, IIASA researchers Dmitry Erokhin and Nadejda Komendantova explore how the same climate information is discussed differently across online platforms and why those differences matter for climate communication and resilience.

As populations grow and economies develop, the world will need more roads, railways, and other mobility infrastructure, especially in rapidly urbanizing regions. The challenge is to provide that infrastructure while minimizing resource use and carbon emissions – a goal new research suggests is well within reach.

At the inaugural Howard Raiffa Lecture, Avril Haines argued that behavioral science and decision analysis can help governments make more ethical decisions under pressure.

How do wildfires grow into catastrophic events? By tracing the earliest detectable origins of the devastating 2015 equatorial Southeast Asian fires, researchers found that most large fires had multiple origin points and identified the ecological, climatic, and human factors associated with where fires begin. These findings provide new insights that could help improve fire prevention and understanding of fire risks under climate change across tropical landscapes.

Researchers from the Forest Fire Research Division of the National Institute of Forest Science (NIFoS), Republic of Korea, visited the FLAM team in IIASA’s Agriculture, Forestry and Ecosystem Services (AFE) Group, Biodiversity and Natural Resources (BNR) Program, on 8-9 July 2026 to discuss future collaboration on wildfire modelling, aerial firefighting strategies, and megafire response. 

Citizen science is changing how research is done, but fragmented platforms and tools continue to limit its potential. Through the Horizon Europe-funded RIECS-Concept project, IIASA is helping to lay the foundations for a pan-European research infrastructure that will connect citizen science efforts across Europe and strengthen their scientific and societal impact.

Day two at the Raiffa Academy: IIASA Journalist-in-Residence Lisa Palmer on decision-analysis tools that navigate scientific uncertainty, competing interests and the realities of negotiation under pressure.

IIASA researchers contributed to a new international study showing that a combination of healthier diets, improved farm productivity, and reduced food waste could fundamentally reshape global agriculture, substantially reducing pressure on land and greenhouse gas emissions while delivering significant benefits for human health and the environment.

Lisa Palmer reflects on the Raiffa Academy which opened with a premise that many global challenges suffer from failures in decision-making, negotiation and implementation, not a lack of data.

A new Focus Issue has been launched in Environmental Research: Climate on ‘Climate Risks and Socioeconomic Vulnerability’, bringing together Guest Editors from sister projects SPARCCLE, CROSSEU and ACCREU.

IIASA recently welcomed Professor Subra Suresh – Vannevar Bush Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Professor at Large at Brown University, former Director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and former President of Carnegie Mellon University and Nanyang Technological University Singapore – for a full day of exchange culminating in a Science Parliament Lecture titled, Innovation 4.0 for Humanity 4.0. 

Climate change does not affect everyone equally. Vulnerability to extreme heat is shaped by a combination of conditions in which people live and work. If climate adaptation is to reduce vulnerability rather than simply manage its consequences, it must address the underlying conditions that create vulnerability. This is particularly relevant for workers, whose experiences remain a major blind spot in climate adaptation despite their essential role in providing the goods and services society depends on.

At a time when strengthening biodiversity protection and climate resilience has never been more urgent, cost-efficient and evidence-based approaches to conservation are gaining real policy traction. The NaturaConnect project has spent four years developing precisely these approaches – and this event is your opportunity to engage with the results. We will present the project’s scientific outputs, innovative decision-support tools and policy recommendations, covering protected area expansion, restoration priorities and key ecological corridors that together form the Trans-European Nature Network (TEN-N) across a range of climate and land-use scenarios. Through panel sessions and keynote speeches, the event will help chart a path forward – ensuring NaturaConnect’s tools, datasets and guidelines continue to inform conservation planning beyond the project’s lifetime.

IIASA has been invited to participate in the 48th Meeting of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, taking place from 13–17 July 2026 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Following his recent Science Parliament Lecture at IIASA, Prof. Subra Suresh sat down with us to discuss the future of innovation, science diplomacy, and international collaboration. Drawing on a career spanning academia, government, and global research leadership, he reflects on the importance of building trust across borders, communicating science effectively, and ensuring that emerging technologies benefit society.

Farmers, extension workers, and governments now have a powerful new tool to help identify the crops best suited to specific parcels of land, enabling more efficient use of resources and greater resilience to climate change.

The final Open-Earth-Monitor Global Workshop will take place on 7–9 October 2026 in Barcelona, Spain, marking the culmination of four years of collaborative research and innovation in open-source Earth Observation applications and showcasing the project's final tools, results, and impact.

IIASA is committed to a workplace where everyone can thrive, regardless of background. This page centralizes our Gender Equality and DEI plans, alongside our annual, data-driven progress reports, reflecting our ongoing commitment to institutional excellence.

The Gender Equality and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Plan (GEP) 2026–2028 reaffirms IIASA’s commitment to a workplace where diversity, equity, and inclusion are fundamental to institutional excellence, and where all employees – regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ethnicity, or background – can thrive.