Located in Ispra, Northern Italy, the Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) is one of seven institutes that constitute the Joint Research Centre (JRC), which is a Directorate-General of the European Commission providing customer-driven scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of European Union policies.
The mission of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability is to provide scientific and technical support to the European Union's policies for the protection and sustainable development of the European and global environment.
The IES was created in 2001 through a merger of the former Environment Institute of the JRC with the Space Applications Institute, giving life to a scientific structure covering the entire environmental sciences with particular competences in the field of earth observation and remote sensing. With 470 staff, the IES is one of the largest interdisciplinary environmental research institutes in Europe.
Being structured in seven scientific Units, the Institute at present is engaged in eight main fields of activity:
- Sustainable Use of Natural Resources: Water, Soils, Forests.
- Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development.
- Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation.
- Environmental Risks and Natural Hazards.
- Sustainable Transport and Air Quality.
- Renewable Energies.
- Environmental Dimension of Development Co-operation.
- Environmental Monitoring and Information Systems: GMES and INSPIRE.
Thruogh its research actions, the IES supports a large number of European policies and programmes related to the environment including, among others, the Water Framework Directive, the Thematic Strategies of the 6th Environment Action Programme, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) and the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE).
The main customers of the work of IES are the Policy Directorates-General of the European Commission and other European bodies, such as the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), as well as global organisations such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The IES works in close collaboration with research partners in the Member States of the European Union and beyond.
The IES runs several large-scale research infrastructures, including the Vehicle Emissions Laboratory VELA, the European Solar Test Installation ESTI and hosts a large number of unique pan-European and global databases. The Institute actively supports the enlargement and integration process of the European Union thruogh targeted activities. Being a European reference centre for environmental science and technology, it is also engaged in international standardisation efforts and provides calibration services to the private sector and the scientific community at large.
The IES puts strong emphasis on the public dissemination of its research results through publications and media activities, thus strengthening the link between EU policies and the European citizen.
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