Portrait of the Institute

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) was founded in 1992 and now has a staff of about 210 people. The historic buildings of the Institute as well as the high-performance computer are located on Potsdam’s Telegraphenberg campus.

At 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.

PIK research projects are interdisciplinary and undertaken by scientists from the following Research Domains: Earth System Analysis, Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities, Sustainable Solutions and Transdisciplinary Concepts & Methods.

Through data analysis, computer simulations and models, PIK provides decision makers with sound information and tools for sustainable development. In addition to publishing results in scientific journals the Institute gives advice to national and regional authorities and, increasingly, to global organisations such as the World Bank.

Understanding the Earth system is a huge task that no institution or country can tackle alone. PIK is part of a global network on questions of global environmental change. It closely collaborates with many international partners and is developing, together with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the U.K., a European perspective of sustainability science. PIK plays an active role in activities such as the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). As a member of the European Climate Forum (ECF), the Institute is in direct and continuous exchange with decision-makers from the economy, politics and civil society.

• PIK-Mission