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institute news 29www.iiasa.ac.at news at iiasa summer 2017 ◼ options Recent awards Five IIASA research studies were selected as part of Environmental Research Letters Highlights of 2016. The collection highlights the journal’s “most innovative groundbreaking articles published in 2016,” as selected by the journal’s editorial board. Among the thirty articles selected by the journal, five articles with IIASA lead or coauthors made the cut. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/erl-17 The Risk and Resilience Program received an international award for its long-standing collaborations with the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) in organizing annual conferences on integrated disaster risk management. In addition to IIASA’s collaborations with DPRI, the award also seeks to recognize IIASA’s role as a founding member of the Society for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM) www.iiasa.ac.at/news/DPRI-17 IIASA researcher Daniela Weber has received the Allianz Young Talent Prize from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Demographie (DGD), the third award honoring her work on the international perspective on aging and cognitive decline. The World Population Program researcher is one of four awardees based on her international comparison of the cognition decline of elderly people. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/Weber-17 Once every three years the Dutch Hydrological Society awards its prestigious Hydrology Prize (NHV Hydrologieprijs) to recognize exceptional contribution to hydrological science. IIASA Water Program Deputy Director Yoshihide Wada, who has published over 50 articles in the field of hydrology over the last decade, won the prize due to his groundbreaking work which revealed the impact of human water consumption on drought. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/Wada-17 Systems analysis applied to environment and health In collaboration with the UK national member organization – the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), IIASA cohosted a conference at the Royal Society in London. On 2 December leading academics and practitioners came together to discuss the latest developments in systems analysis and modelling, specifically to talk about the opportunities and pitfalls of engaging decision makers with systems analysis. www.iiasa.ac.at/royalsociety I IASA World Population Program Director Wolfgang Lutz has been awarded a 2017 Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). The new research project will explore the viability and acceptability of a new holistic indicator—Empowered Life Years—as an ultimate end measure for sustainable development. The new indicator is based on the fact that being alive is a fundamental prerequisite for enjoying any quality of life. But since mere survival does not say much about quality of life, this project proposes to combine life expectancy with empowerment indicators such as health, literacy, freedom from poverty, and happiness. If the world achieves sustainable development the new indicator would not decline over time, even if feedbacks from socioeconomic and environmental changes, including climate change, are factored into the model. “There has been much discussion recently about complementing the still widely used GDP per person with other indicators of quality of life that consider more than just the economic dimension. The tendency has been to go for large sets of indicators. But there is the danger that one does not see the forest for the trees,” says Lutz. “This project tries to go in the other direction and look for one comprehensive indicator that reflects many of these dimensions and has a direct substantive meaning: the number of years a person is alive and empowered to enjoy life.” Such a comprehensive indicator could also be used for forecasting future trends. In order to more realistically address complex socioeconomic and environmental feedbacks, the study includes forward-looking case studies on Costa Rica, Namibia, Nepal, and South Africa, and a historical study on Finland to better understand the interactions under differing conditions. The new grant is the 9th ERC grant awarded to IIASA researchers and Wolfgang Lutz’s third. Lutz was also recently appointed to join an independent group of scientists that have been charged by the UN Secretary-General to draft the Global Sustainable Development Report 2019, which will be presented to the heads of state and government at the 2019 UN General Assembly. KL www.iiasa.ac.at/news/Lutz-erc-17 ERC grant to explore human wellbeing as criterion for sustainable development