What we do

IHDP has developed an effective structure over the course of the last decade, featuring a set of core projects that operate as relatively autonomous activities, a number of joint projects that are managed on a collaborative basis with the Earth System Science Partnership and other global change research programmes, as well as several cross-cutting themes that are of particular interest to the members of IHDP''s scientific community. To support these efforts, the Programme has enhanced its engagement in capacity development through initiatives such as the International Human Dimensions Workshops and has strengthened its networking and dissemination of research findings through activities like the triennial Open Meetings. Recently, IHDP has begun to explore the science-policy interaction pertaining to human dimensions of global environmental change issues.

IHDP’s core science projects:
Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS)
Industrial Transformation (IT)
Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC)
Global Land Project (GLP)
Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ)
Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC)

Research: Core projects/Science projects:

Figure 1: IHDP’s Governance StructureIHDP’s main objective is to provide a platform for fostering original research (Figure 1). The core projects, co-sponsored with IGBP in several cases, constitute the flagship activities in this realm. Their pattern of development is now well established. Individual core projects have a life cycle of approximately 10 years, ending with a synthesis process. Two core projects, Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) and Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC), have already completed this cycle successfully. Others such as Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS) and Industrial Transformation (IT), will follow the same path during the period covered by this plan. The issues of LUCC have merged into a new successor project, the Global Land Project (GLP), co-sponsored by IGBP. IDGEC’s focus on institutions has evolved into a cross-cutting theme on governance and institutions that is of interest to all the core projects. At the same time, new core projects are emerging. Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) began in 2006, and IHDP has joined forces with IGBP to operate the second phase of the Land/Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ 2) project.
Other research activities are also continuing to evolve. IHDP has acted as a sponsor and an equal partner of the ESSP since its inception in 2001, working to further the joint projects operating under the umbrella of the partnership. The character of ESSP, however, as well as its relationship to IHDP and the other global change research programmes is still developing. IHDP has also taken steps to initiate research on several cross-cutting themes. Work on the theme of Vulnerability, Resilience, and Adaptation (VRA), of which a special issue of the journal Global Environmental Change is a product, is a leading example. As Figure 2 indicates, other cross-cutting themes have been identified and will become more prominent during IHDP’s second decade. Promoted initially by a desire of the Scientific Committee (SC) to engage in thematic activities spanning the work of the core projects, these cross-cutting themes have evolved both into an important means of illuminating issues that transcend the concerns of individual projects as well as of integrating the results produced by the core projects.

Figure 2: IHDP''s Programme Structure The other elements of IHDP’s portfolio of activities have developed around IHDP''s commitment to innovative science, capacity development, networking and outreach. These activities have acquired a momentum of their own in the International Human Dimensions Workshops, the organisation of the triennial Open Meetings of the human dimensions research community and the improvement of IHDP-UPDATE, IHDP’s triennial newsletter. These developments, driven by members of the IHDP Secretariat located in Bonn, constitute innovative responses to the real needs of the research community. They have produced excellent results on a case-by-case basis. IHDP’s objective in this area for the next phase is to develop an integrated programme of capacity development, networking and outreach linked explicitly with IHDP’s activities in the areas of research and its efforts to develop mutually beneficial relations between the scientific and political communities.
Policy relevance and the desire to take steps to cultivate mutually beneficial relations between members of the scientific and political communities are crucial for IHDP’s next decade. The science-policy interaction is an area in which the human dimensions community has a comparative advantage. The nature of policy processes, is already a major research theme in the social sciences. The IHDP Scientific Committee is committed to developing a beneficial relationship between science and policy if fufilling the third pillar of the 2007-2015 Strategic Plan through a series of IHDP science-policy workshops, first launched in 2006. Practitioners play a role not only in the synthesis process for IHDP’s core projects, but also in shaping research activities. IHDP is also considering a variety of mechanisms for communicating policy-relevant findings arising from its research endeavours to policymakers and members of the public.

Research and Partners

IHDP''s programme is designed around three main objectives :
cutting edge research
capacity development and international scientific networking
Science policy interaction
Requiring collaboration from a wide range of disciplines and studies encompassing the local, regional and global scales, these activities are increasingly carried out in conjunction with IHDP''s international partner programmes on global environmental change: the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and the International Programme on Biodiversity (DIVERSITAS). IHDP is also a scientific sponsor of the Global Change System for Analysis, Research and Training (START) and a member of the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP). Additionally, IHDP collaborates with intergovernmental bodies such as the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) and a variety of UN programmes and agencies.
IHDP''s International Secretariat, the central coordinating body of the programme, is based at the United Nations Campus in Bonn, Germany, and is part of the United Nations University (UNU).