Among the top climate think tanks in the standardized ranking are the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) and Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) from the United States, the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) in Berlin - which has been jointly founded by Stiftung Mercator and PIK just a few years ago and is directed by PIK's chief economist Ottmar Edenhofer. In the absolute ranking, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig is among the top institutions, as well as The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in the US, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in India, among others.
The two rankings are compiled on the basis of a series of indicators that assess the activities carried out by a think tank, including its scientific output, verified through the number and quality of articles it has published in peer-reviewed journals, proceedings and books. Further factors are its degree of activity in organizing conferences and seminars and in participating in the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as its degree of dissemination through participation in carefully selected international conferences on climate and energy, and its web performance.
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Weblink to the full 2015 ICCG Think Tank Ranking and methodology:
http://www.thinktankmap.org/Page.aspx?Name=Ranking_2015
