Overview

The Social Systems Division addresses the challenges of social systems to realize the future vision that human socioeconomic activities, the root of environmental problems, will be sustainable for both the environment and human society.

Mission: Research on the transition sustainable toward social systems

Research in Social Systems Division

We conduct research to support the transition to sustainable social systems, including
- developing theories and methodologies such as those related to mathematical models and social survey that take an integrated approach to examine the relationship between socioeconomic human activities and various environmental issues,
- developing scenarios and roadmaps to realize the vision for a sustainable society that harmonizes the environment and the economy, and
- proposing specific measures and policies in collaboration with related stakeholders.

Five Sections

The Social Systems Division consists of the following five sections.

  • Global Sustainability Integrated Assessment Section 
    Research on the development of integrated models to assess various comprehensive issues on a global scale for achieving global sustainability on the social and environment.
  • Decarbonization Measures Assessment Section
    Research on development of models and databases for assessing decarbonization initiatives for tackling climate change problems.
  • System Innovation Section
    Research on sustainable use of energy and resources, including the development of measures for substantial improvement of their utilization efficiencies.
  • Regional Planning Section
    Research on lifestyle and regional planning for balancing environment and quality of life in urban and rural communities.
  • Economics and Policy Studies Section
    Research on environmental policy assessment, as well as theoretical research on environmental evaluation and methodological developments in the field of economics.

NIES Strategic Research Program

NIES promotes Strategic Research Programs, which are interdisciplinary research programs for tackling the complex environmental challenges that the world has been facing recently.

The researchers in Social Systems Division are mainly engaged in ‘Decarbonized and Sustainable Society Research Program’ and ‘Co-design Approach for Local Sustainability Research Program’, in close collaboration with other programs, such as ‘Climate Change Adaptation Research Program’ and ‘Environmental Emergency and Resilience Research Program’.