Roman Hoffmann leads the Migration and Sustainable Development (MIG) Research Group in the IIASA Population and Just Societies (POPJUS) Program. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Vienna and degrees in sociology and economics from the University of Munich, Germany.
In his applied research, he studies the relationship between climate change and population dynamics and the resulting implications for sustainable development. In particular, his work focuses on investigating the underlying causes, patterns, and consequences of different types of migration, with an emphasis on the links between environmental factors and human mobility. He is also interested in climate change mitigation and sustainability, including drivers of environmental concern, pro-environmental behaviors, and support for climate action.
Prior to his current position, he worked at the Vienna Institute of Demography, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the University of Vienna, the University of Munich, and the Bavarian State Institute for Higher Education Research and Planning. In 2012, he was a visiting scholar at the University of the Philippines, School of Economics in Manila. He has consulted and collaborated with several international organizations, including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. Additionally, he has worked with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), the City of Munich, and various non-governmental organizations.
He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Population-Environment Research Network (PERN) of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) and a member of the IUSSP Panel on Population Dynamics under Global Conflict and Climate Change. He is also a member of the editorial boards of the journals Climatic Change, Population and Environment, and the Climate Mobility Section of Frontiers in Climate.
Affiliation: IIASA
The Wittgenstein Centre aspires to be a world leader in the advancement of demographic methods and their application to the analysis of human capital and population dynamics. In assessing the effects of these forces on long-term human well-being, we combine scientific excellence in a multidisciplinary context with relevance to a global audience. It is a collaboration among the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the University of Vienna.