The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an independent International research institute located in Laxenburg, near Vienna in Austria, founded as an East-West scientific cooperation initiative during the Cold War. Through its research programs and initiatives, the institute conducts policy-oriented interdisciplinary research into issues too large or complex to be solved by a single country or academic discipline. These include climate change, energy security, population aging, and sustainable development. The results of IIASA research and the expertise of its researchers are made available to policymakers worldwide to help them make informed and evidence-based policies.
Organization Nearly 600 researchers from 60 countries currently work with the institute. IIASA's international and interdisciplinary network includes staff, alumni, member communities, collaborators, diplomatic partners, and visiting fellows. Hans Joachim "John" Schellnhuber is the current IIASA Director General and Karen R. Lips serves as the institute's Deputy Director General. Past directors have included Howard Raiffa, a professor at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School, Roger Levien, former vice president for Strategy at Xerox, Leen Hordijk, former Director at the Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, Italy, and Detlof von Winterfeldt, professor at the University of Southern California. IIASA is a non-governmental institution funded by scientific organizations in its member countries, which include Austria, China, Egypt, Finland, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam. In 2022, IIASA increased its membership footprint through the Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Member Organization (SSARMO), as part of a regional approach to participation in IIASA research and capacity building activities. SSARMO includes 18 African countries (Botswana, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) who are participating in the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) in sub-Saharan Africa. Funding for the institute also comes from contracts, grants, and donations from governments, international organizations, academia, business, and individuals. Its research is independent and is not constrained by political or national self-interest of member countries.
History IIASA was established by a charter signed on 4 October 1972 by representatives of the Soviet Union, the United States, and ten other countries from the Eastern and Western blocks at The Royal Society in London. It was the culmination of six years’ effort driven forward by both the US President Lyndon Johnson and the USSR Premier Alexei Kosygin. For IIASA, it was the beginning of a project to use scientific cooperation to build bridges across the Cold War divide and to confront growing global problems on a truly international scale. The first scientist arrived at IIASA in June 1973. IIASA built international multidisciplinary teams to confront innumerable global challenges both long-standing and emerging. For example, a study on water pollution carried out in the 1980s by a team of IIASA chemists, biologists, and economists still forms the basis of modern water policy design in Japan, USA, and the former USSR. IIASA's approach of bringing together different nationalities and disciplines to work toward common goals has now been widely imitated, for example, in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. Instead of closing in the 1990s upon the end of the Cold War, the institute broadened its mandate from bridging East and West to a general global focus. Today, IIASA brings together a wide range of scientific skills to provide science-based insights into critical policy issues in international and national debates on global change.
Current research The IIASA mission is to provide scientific guidance to policymakers by finding solutions to global problems through applied systems analysis in order to improve human well-being and protect the environment. The institute is at the forefront of promoting science diplomacy and fostering debates about how science can help build trust between nations and support foreign policies. The Vienna Statement on Science Diplomacy, a document created by IIASA, advocating for a renewed global commitment to international scientific cooperation to help countries build stronger relations for the benefit of all of humanity, has been endorsed by close to two hundred eminent personalities from the academic and policymaking community, including H.E. Ban Ki-moon, 8th UN Secretary-General and Co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens, and H.E. Tarja Halonen, 11th President of the Republic of Finland and member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation. In 2021, IIASA embarked on a new strategy to develop and apply systems science to support transformations to sustainability. Building on almost fifty years experience in systems science, the IIASA Strategy 2021-2030 positions the institute to be the primary destination for integrated systems solutions and policy insights to current, emerging, and novel global sustainability challenges, threats, and opportunities. The strategy combines three integrated pillars—research, impact enhancement, and implementation—to deliver on this vision. To support the IIASA strategy, the institute also implemented a re-designed research structure to enhance the integration of scientific work across the institute and so strengthen IIASA as it navigates the global system of systems. The new structure has two tiers consisting of six research programs which are in turn split into research groups, with the option to activate or deactivate groups as priorities change: Advancing Systems Analysis, Biodiversity and Natural Resources, Economic Frontiers, Energy, Climate, and Environment, Population and Just Societies, and Strategic Initiatives.
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