Page - 28 - in options, Volume summer 2015

institute news 28 options + summer 2015 www.iiasa.ac.at news at iiasa Mexican and US committees meet in California Mexico is one of the newest of 22 national science organizations that fund and govern IIASA. In February, the new Mexican National Committee for IIASA—the IIASA National Member Organization (NMO), which includes representatives from the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) and the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), met with US counterparts from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for the first joint Mexican/US committee meeting. Attended by IIASA Director General and CEO Pavel  Kabat and newly appointed Council Chair Don Saari, the committees discussed areas of further research collaboration, particularly in the fields of water and climate change. Following the meeting, IIASA co-organized a reception in Newport Beach, California, for members of the IIASA community in southern California. The event was attended by IIASA alumni, collaborators, and donors, giving them an opportunity to network and hear updates on IIASA’s latest research initiatives and activities in the USA. Speakers included Kabat, Saari, and former IIASA Director Roger Levien, who  is the current president of Friends of IIASA, a nonprofit organization that enables US residents to donate to IIASA tax-free. PB www.friendsofiiasa.org Pakistan visit cements further collaborations IIASA will increase its cooperation with Pakistani government agencies and leading universities, as a result of a series of meetings between Director General and CEO Professor Dr. Pavel Kabat and high-level officials in Pakistan during his recent visit to Islamabad, Lahore, and Faisalabad in March. In a meeting with Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms, and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Kabat emphasized the links between IIASA’s work and several key themes in the Planning Commission Vision 2025 for Pakistan, particularly energy and energy access, water systems, and education. Iqbal invited IIASA’s cooperation in the Vision 2025 pillar aimed at building food–water–energy security in the face of climate change, and the leaders agreed to explore partnership initiatives in these areas. A later meeting at the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Sartaj Aziz, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Security and Ishfaq Ahmad, former President of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences (PAS; Pakistan’s National Member Organization to IIASA), and former science advisor to the prime minister, reinforced the importance of these issues in international relations with India, where climate change will lead to shared challenges. Meetings at Pakistan’s leading scientific organizations led to additional opportunities for partnerships, both in Pakistan and in the broader region. These included a roundtable discussion at PAS, led by PAS President Anwar Nasim, as well as meetings with representatives from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Pakistan Science Foundation, Higher Education Commission, Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Science Foundation (ECOSF), and COMSTECH—the Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation established by the Third Islamic Summit of the Organization of Islamic Countries held at Makkah, Saudi Arabia in 1981, which is hosted by Pakistan. These meetings and a series of lectures given by Kabat produced a number of proposals for joint initiatives, including pledges of support from the Higher Education Commission for visits by young Pakistani researchers to IIASA, cooperation on external grants by researchers from IIASA and Pakistani institutions, and regional workshops organized in collaboration with the international scientific organizations COMSTECH and ECOSF. PB www.iiasa.ac.at/news/Pakistan-15