IIASA and Toyota Central R&D Labs explore areas of further collaboration

Building on a long history of collaboration with the Toyota Central R&D Labs, IIASA Director General and Deputy Director General met with the Labs’ Executive Chairman to identify options to expand joint research activities. Future areas of mutual interest include energy efficiency, reducing air pollution, and the diffusion of new technologies to improve car safety.

Toyota Central R&D Labs is the research institute of the Toyota Group of companies. It carries out basic research in a variety of fields including resource conservation, energy conservation, environmental preservation, and safety. Mr Masuda was accompanied on his visit to IIASA by Dr Tsutomu Kajino, Research Manager of the Social Systems Research Division, and Dr Takuya Hara, Researcher in the Social Systems Research Division—and a former participant in IIASA’s Young Scientists Summer Program.

IIASA presented some of its latest research results to the Toyota delegation including from the:

• World Population Program by Program Director Professor Wolfgang Lutz;
• Ecosystems Services and Management Program by Program Director Dr Michael Obersteiner;
• Transitions to New Technologies by Program Director Professor Arnulf Grubler; and
• Energy Program by Research Scholar Dr David McCollum.

Research Partner: IIASA and Toyota Central R&D Labs

IIASA Director General and Chief Executive Officer Prof. Dr. Pavel Kabat with Mr. Yoshihiko Masuda, Executive Chairman, Toyota Central R&D Labs., Inc.

Recent research collaborations between IIASA and Toyota Central R&D Labs have developed our understanding of the global energy system and of air pollution.

Researchers from Toyota Central R&D Labs contributed to the Global Energy Assessment (GEA), which in 2012 defined a new global energy policy agenda—one that transforms the way society thinks about, uses, and delivers energy.  Coordinated by IIASA and involving over 500 specialists from a range of disciplines, industry groups, and policy areas, GEA research aims to facilitate equitable and sustainable energy services for all, in particular for around three billion people who currently lack access to clean, modern energy. Other collaborations with Toyota Central R&D Labs include energy modeling as well as empirical analysis in the area of climate change mitigation and energy transformations.

Since 2008, Toyota Central Research and Development Laboratory has also funded IIASA and partners to study:

1. the reduction of energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and the improvements of air quality in Asia with a particular focus on the transport sector; and
2. future energy scenarios to improve air pollution (ozone) in East and South Asia. The latter involved the development of a simulator able to predict tropospheric ozone concentrations across the whole of South and East Asia.

IIASA Working with Business

IIASA is also seeing a growing number of contracts with commercial partners worldwide, including:

• The global insurer, Zurich Insurance Group, began working with IIASA in 2013 to identify and address research gaps on flood resilience and community based disaster risk reduction, demonstrate the benefits of pre-event risk reduction over post-event disaster relief and to improve public dialogue around disaster resilience.
• The German carmaker, Daimler AG, has collaborated with IIASA researchers to assess biofuel potential from marginal and degraded lands in India and Brazil.
• The Brazilian energy company, Petroleo Brasileiro, was one of nineteen sponsors of IIASA’s Global Energy Assessment.

• The multinational consumer goods company, Unilever, funded IIASA’s agricultural experts from 2008-10 to analyze yields and land suitability of key agricultural crops under a changing climate. 

Last edited: 02 November 2015