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Author : Detlof von Winterfeldt
Director of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Aus-
tria
The Soviet Union and the United States joined hands to
establish the International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis (IIASA) at the height of the Cold War, a geopo-
litical standoff.
It started with a conversation between President Johnson
and Premier Kosygin in the United States; it was con-
nected to a meeting they had at the UN at that time. One
of the topics they discussed was essentially something you
may consider science diplomacy, or diplomacy through sci-
ence. And the idea was born that an international institute founded primarily by the Soviet Union
and the United States and their respective allies would be a good vehicle to study problems of
joint interest, problems of the industrialized countries that we shared, like pollution and energy.
Even though there was a major shift from East-West problems to North-South problems, we al-
ways have retained a global perspective. Most of our research in the early days had to do with
global energy systems; we even started on climate change.
In terms of staff, we've always had a very vibrant Russian group of scientists.
I have always tried to infuse into NASA the notion that we ought to be more relevant to decision-
makers in the world, including decision-makers in governments and, to some extent, in industry,
but mostly in governments and international organizations.
The Global Energy Assessment (GEA) is unique in the sense that it goes way beyond energy. And
that makes it interesting, for example, in contrast to the very valuable national or international en-
ergy agency contribution to the energy picture; we focus on energy and climate, energy and security,
energy and poverty. So, we focus on the connections between energy problems and the other world
problems. Of course, energy and climate changes are very, very important. This is now one of the
three major themes of IIASA.
IIASA used to have a very strong water program that was primarily focused on pollution, pollution
transfer and basically the use of rivers for transportation, and industrial purposes, etc., between
different countries.
We have to say "no" to a number of interesting problem areas. For example, it is health globally
and regionally. We don't have the expertise in the health area, and the WHO is very good at this.
Traffic is another one that I know quite well because we have an institute in my university in Cal-
ifornia called the METRANS Transportation Center, that does traffic analysis. We unfortunately
had to say that we can't put certain other areas on the front of the table right now.
A lot of work is being done in the world in challenging new modeling approaches, and we want
to test them here at IIASA and bring them in. Ultimately you'll be judged not by the research you
did and the journal articles that you wrote, but by whether you made a difference, whether you
helped solve the climate debate, contributed to reducing hunger in the world. It's hard to make
this judgment but I would like to be able to say after ten yeas: Yes, IIASA has made this, this and
this difference in the world.
http://interaffairs.ru
NASA: An Institute for Diplomacy Through Science