New POP research at the IIASA 40th Anniversary Conference

How can science and policy come together to provide solutions to global problems? This question was discussed by conference participants at the IIASA 40th Anniversary Conference. The latest research on global issues such as climate, food, water, and energy were presented by a prestigious line up of scientists, academics, policy advisors, and heads of government.

Researchers from the World Population Program played a vital role during the conference as speakers, rapporteurs and moderators.

In his Framing Presentation Wolfgang Lutz provided new findings from POP's population projections to 2050, which project a world population of around 9 billion people in less than 40 years’ time. The projections have been analyzed by 600 international experts and their views will serve as the “human core” of new IPCC projections.

Parallel Session 4 presented research by POP scientists and external researchers that seek to enhance the analysis of differential vulnerability by taking education and human capital explicitly into account. Populations are not homogenous, and individuals differ across many dimensions, e.g. with respect to (social, economic, demographic, aspects and consumption behavior etc.). Behavior can differ according to place of residence (countries, rural/urban, smaller regions), age, gender, education status, health status, income status, and numerous other factors. However, many analyses that include population as a driver often ignore these differentials. 

The conference details are available at http://conference2012.iiasa.ac.at/program.html

Last edited: 29 October 2012