The ECE Program is one of the leading scientific research institutions in the domain of integrated assessment of climate change and the systems transition to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition to its own high-impact research, ECE provides a range of services to the broader research community.
Researchers and research software engineers at ECE are managing a number of open-source tools to facilitate modeling and analysis of climate change mitigation scenarios. These tools and packages are developed in an open, collaborative process implementing best practices of scientific software development, seeking to foster open science and the implementation of the FAIR principles.
As part of its mission, ECE hosts dozens of interactive scenario web databases (aka Scenario Explorer). These databases form an integral part of the infrastructure for research conducted at ECE and in the wider integrated-assessment research community and they are also a key tool for dissemination of scientific insights and results. The databases are used in particular for assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and projects with research partners in the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020/Horizon Europe programs. For an example of our work, visit the AR6 Scenario Explorer[1], which is the most prominent instance of this service currently deployed; it makes accessible the quantitative scenario data underpinning the IPCC’s report “Mitigation of Climate Change”, the contribution of Working Group 3 to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).
Further examples of a highly visible tools in the research community are the MESSAGEix Integrated Assessment Modeling framework[2] and the Python package pyam for scenario data analysis and visualization[3].
The successful candidate will join a team of research software engineers and software developers working with researchers at ECE and collaborating institutions on further developing and continuously improving these tools to support energy- and climate-related research in ECE and in the wider academic community. An interest in the scientific content of the software tools – climate change and energy transition research – will help communication within the multi-disciplinary teams and developing a deeper understanding of the user needs.
[1] https://data.ece.iiasa.ac.at/ar6
[2] https://docs.messageix.org
[3] https://pyam-iamc.readthedocs.io/