PIK

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) is a non-profit research institute addressing crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts and sustainable development.

Interdisciplinary and solution-oriented approaches are a distinctive characteristic of the institute. Researchers in the natural and social sciences from all over the world work closely 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 and options for a sustainable development. This work is primarily conducted through data analysis and computer simulations of both earth system dynamics and social processes.

The institute advises national governments, the European Commission and a number of international organizations like the World Bank. It contributes to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such as the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources (2011) and the influential Fifth Assessment Report (2014).  PIK is part of a global network of scientific and academic institutions working on questions of global environmental change. It is involved in over 100 projects with international partners around the world, including around 25 consortia conducting EU projects.

Research at PIK is organized in four Research Domains: Earth System Analysis, Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities, Sustainable Solutions, Transdisciplinary Concepts and Methods.