ASA is coordinating the IIASA Futures Initiative on Eurasian Economic Integration, which discusses and analyzes possible scenarios of economic integration between the EU, Russia, and adjoining countries, extending where relevant to Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan. The three-year initiative consists of a series of workshops discussing specific aspects of integration. Two workshops in 2015 covered energy, transport, and infrastructure, and were attended by more than a hundred researchers and decision makers. Amid regional political and economic uncertainty in 2015, IIASA offered a unique discussion platform for scientists and policymakers to engage in constructive, evidence-based dialogue on the possible futures of economic integration in Eurasia.
Science-policy work by individual ASA staff, among many, included:
- Rovenskaya and Ilmola presented a developed in ASA water-energy-agriculture modeling framework and applied it to the case study of Shanxi region, China, at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development workshop on Decision-Support Tools for Policy Dialogues on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus (Paris, France, 2-3 July 2015).
- Jonas and Żebrowski discussed issues related to global challenges posed by mitigation of global warming, and how these challenges translate into national targets for emissions reductions consistent with global requirements at a workshop for stakeholders from ministries and industry as a part of the ClimTrans2050 project supported by the Austrian Climate Research Programme (Vienna, Austria, 30 September 2015).
- Ilmola discussed the results of the joint IIASA-STEPI project on modeling Korean economy’s resilience at the Foresight and Modeling seminar attended by representatives of the Korean government and business (Seoul, South Korea, 23 October 2015).
- Ilmola facilitated the participatory modeling exercise with the Prime Minister’s Office of Finland deriving governmental policies to improve knowledge base in Finland. Representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office and seven ministries participated in three workshops and the reporting meeting (Helsinki, Finland, March-June 2015).
- Thurner presented the research results on systemic risk management at meetings organized by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority of Germany and attended by decision makers from the financial, social security, industry and production, and insurance sectors (Bonn, Germany, 12 January 2015).
- Ermoliev gave a seminar on the progress and main findings of the ongoing IIASA-NAS Ukraine project on food-water-energy security at a meeting at the National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine attended by representatives of the Ukrainian government, business, and high-level academia (Kiev, Ukraine, 29 October, 2015).