Advanced Systems Analysis
The increasing manifestation and recognition of the systems nature of global challenges, along with the unprecedented availability of data from scientific, governmental, and commercial sources, require more effective and efficient tools for systems analysis and decision support.
The Advanced Systems Analysis Program works in close cooperation with both specialists and decision makers to expedite the recognition and fulfillment of requirements for new systems methods and techniques to meet their needs. In this way, the program develops more efficient solutions to problems or solves those that cannot be addressed by existing tools.
Objectives
- Enhance the interface between systems analysis methodologies and applications by tailoring methods to present and future needs. In particular, improve the methods and techniques used in decision-support models to deal with nonlinear dynamics, uncertainty, bounded rationality, multiple agents, and multiple objectives.
- Improve the transfer of methods at IIASA through the exploratory co-designing of research questions and methods with end-users. In particular, develop and implement new approaches to analyze the resilience of economic, financial, and ecological networked systems.
- Advance the approaches, practices, and rigor of qualitative research that involves stakeholders and decision makers, and enable the inclusion of results to effectively support decision-making.
- Highlight the utility of advanced systems analysis approaches and techniques in policy-relevant contexts.
Selected highlights
Economic development and the food-water-energy-environment nexus in Ukraine
A new collaborative research program between IIASA researchers and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU) has been set up to provide input to robust solutions and informed policies to ensure sustainable economic development pathways in Ukraine. A...
Restructuring financial networks to reduce systemic risk
Research by the IIASA Advanced Systems Analysis Program shows that the Basel III international regulatory framework for banks will not reduce systemic risk in the financial sector as planned. The results suggest that regulations should instead aim to increase the...
Ecological network analysis reveals systemic impact of threats to ecosystems
Ecological network analysis provides a systematic approach to assess the direct and indirect influences that one network node has on another. Researchers from the IIASA Advanced Systems Analysis Program engage in projects to develop these methodologies further and to...
Employing entropy to study growth and resilience in systems
A study by researchers from the IIASA Advanced Systems Analysis Program, explored the relation between entropy-based indicators describing system efficiency and redundancy, and system growth and resilience to shocks. In another study they suggested ways to incorporate...