IIASA is excited to announce that Migration and Sustainable Development Research Group Leader, Roman Hoffmann, has been awarded a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for a new project to investigate the complex interactions between climate change and human mobility.
© Silveri | IIASA Roman Hoffmann
The ERC has awarded 494 Starting Grants to scientists across Europe, with a total funding pool of nearly €780 million. These grants, which are part of the EU Horizon Europe Programme, are designed to support researchers in their projects, build research teams, and explore innovative ideas across a wide range of disciplines. Starting Grants amount to €1.5 million per grant for a period of five years and are estimated to create up to 3,160 jobs across the teams of new grantees.
ERC President, Maria Leptin, emphasized the importance of supporting researchers, noting that the Starting Grants are crucial for fostering innovation and advancing knowledge in various fields. This year, 44% of the grants were awarded to female researchers, highlighting the ERC's commitment to gender equality in research.
Led by Hoffmann, the new project titled, Climate Change and Human (Im)Mobility: The Role of Compound and Cascading Risks (2C-RISK), will explore how different climate-related risks like extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and other environmental changes can combine and trigger chain reactions that impact people's ability and aspirations to move or migrate. The research is based on two key ideas: firstly, that looking at single causes isn't enough to fully understand how climate change affects people's movement; and secondly, that focusing only on those who move without considering those who remain immobile, doesn't truly capture the experiences of communities impacted by climate change.
By gaining a better understanding of these complex dynamics, the project aims to inform policies that effectively address the challenges of climate-induced mobility and immobility, ensuring more resilient and sustainable outcomes for affected communities. Hoffmann's proposal was one of just 139 projects selected from among the 1,039 proposals received in the Social Sciences and Humanities domain.
"Receiving this ERC Starting Grant is a significant achievement and underscores IIASA's role in advancing critical research on climate change and its societal impacts. Through this work, we will contribute to global efforts in understanding and addressing the complex challenges posed by climate change, particularly in relation to human mobility and migration," Hoffmann notes.
