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Lutz, W. 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7975-8145 & Pachauri, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8138-3178
(2023).
Systems Analysis for Sustainable Wellbeing. 50 years of IIASA research, 40 years after the Brundtland Commission, contributing to the post-2030 Global Agenda.
IIASA Report.
Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 10.5281/zenodo.8214208.
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Abstract
This report chronicles the half-century-long history of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), established in 1972 in Laxenburg, Austria, to address common social, economic, and environmental challenges at a time when the world was politically dominated by the Cold War.
The report shows IIASA’s transition from its original raison d’être as a cooperative scientific venture between East and West to its position today as a global institute engaged in exploring solutions to some of the world’s most intractable problems—the interconnected problems of population, climate change, biodiversity loss, land, energy, and water use, among others.
It provides a concise overview of IIASA’s key contributions to science over the last 50 years and of the advances it has made not only in analyzing existing and emerging trends but also in developing enhanced scientific tools to address them. The report also shows how IIASA is currently working with distinguished partners worldwide to establish the scientific basis for a successful transition to sustainable development.
The global mandate, to achieve the 2030 Agenda, its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and 169 specific targets, features prominently in the institute’s work and in the report at hand: the pathways needed to achieve the SDGs have been the basis of many scientific studies by IIASA and its partners. The predominantly “bottom-up” nature of tackling the SDGs has required optimal responses to the very diverse and overlapping issues they involve, including judicious tradeoffs among the solutions that can be applied. Now, at the mid-term review point of the 2030 Agenda, this report focuses on the big picture and clarifies why, after years of scientific endeavor, the ultimate goal of this difficult global mandate should be sustainable wellbeing for all.
The report is in six parts that summarize past and current IIASA research highlights and point toward future challenges and solutions: i) Systems analysis for a challenged world; ii) Population and human capital; iii) Food security, ecosystems, and biodiversity; iv) Energy, technology, and climate change; v) Global systems analysis for understanding the drivers of sustainable wellbeing; and vi) Moving into the future: Three critical policy messages.
The three critical policy messages, necessary to trigger discussions about a post-2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are: (1) Suboptimization is suboptimal: Mainstream a systems-analysis approach into policymaking at all levels. (2) Enhance individual agency: Prioritize women’s empowerment through universal female education; and (3) Strengthen collective action and governance: Global cooperation and representation for the global commons
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