FutureLabs and Science Units provide additional leverage to PIK’s core research areas. PIK’s FutureLabs are exploratory interdisciplinary research initiatives. They bring together people from different research departments who share common research interests, and foster collaboration with leading disciplinary institutions. FutureLabs address topics where knowledge is urgently needed, but are also charting lesser known territory. Their contributions enhance PIK's ability to navigate the scientific frontier of a rapidly changing research landscape.

The Earth Resilience Science Unit (ERSU) is an inherently interdisciplinary endeavour in close collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology. Since July 2024, the two institutes have combined their expertise to develop a framework for characterizing the resilience of the Earth System in the Anthropocene, exploring stability landscapes of critical geophysical, ecological and societal components that are only fragmentarily known so far.