Project team - PIK
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
At the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) researchers in the natural and social sciences work together to study global change and its impacts on ecological, economic and social systems. They examine the Earth system's capacity for withstanding human interventions and devise strategies for a sustainable development of humankind and nature. Through data analysis, computer simulations and models, PIK provides decision makers with sound information and tools for sustainable development.
Research at PIK is organized in four interdisciplinary Research Domains:
- Earth System Analysis,
- Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities,
- Sustainable Solutions and
- Transdisciplinary Concepts and Methods.
Thus, research spans the earth system level analysis by studying the coupled dynamics of the geosphere, biosphere and anthroposphere under natural and human forcing and the urgent need for a globally transition to sustainability by studying the strategically relevant effects of climate and global change on environmental services and societal structures.
The overall aim is
- to provide strategic analysis to policy makers at regional and global scales,
- to advance theoretical conceptualisatons of socio-environmental systems under global change; further
- to develop scenarios, concepts and methods of how to accomplish the necessary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for achieving long-term climate protection.
Research is supported with active steakholder dialogs. The institute gives advice to national and regional authorities and, increasingly, to global organisations such as the World Bank.
PIK was founded in 1992 by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Federal State of Brandenburg in about equal shares. PIK is a member of the Leibniz Association.
Homepage: https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en
