📢 DECIPHER Summer School 2025 – Advancing Climate and Environment Decision-Making through Modelling

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📍 Location: University of Deusto (UDEUSTO), Bilbao, Spain & limited online participation.
📅 Date: 7-8 July 2025
🕘 Duration: 2 Days

📩  Application: Click here to apply

📆 Registration Deadline: 20 May 2025

👥 Participation Limits: 15 in-person participants, 10 online participants

📩 For more details & registration, contact: o.soimu@deusto.es

📝 Overview

As the need for efficient and effective climate and energy policies grows, so does the importance of equipping policy-makers with evidence-based quantitative support. Our goal as researchers is to provide robust tools to analyze complex environmental and socioeconomic systems. The DECIPHER Summer School 2025, hosted by the University of Deusto and supported by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme DECIPHER (Grant Agreement No. 101056898), offers an intensive training opportunity for postgraduate students, young researchers, early-career scientists, and young professionals. Focusing on understanding the implementation of models in decision making and impacts assessments, and on developing skills in economic and biophysical modeling, the program will offer a dynamic mix of lectures and practical sessions led by leading institutes in the field. Participants will explore cutting-edge methodologies for climate and energy policy assessment, engage with peers from across Europe and beyond, and apply their learning through hands-on model implementation and analysis. The 2-day agenda will include:

🔹Sessions on economic and biophysical modeling frameworks
🔹Hands-on workshops focused on real-world applications
🔹 Group work aimed at progressing participant’s research relevant to applying models to assess policy and environmental scenarios
🔹 Networking opportunities with an international cohort of scholars and experts

🎯 Objective

The objective of the DECIPHER Summer School is to bring together young scholars from diverse academic fields such as climate science, ecology, economics, energy systems, and environmental policy. The course focuses on advancing knowledge and skills related to the integrated application of economic and biophysical models for the assessment of climate policies. By emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and methodological innovation, the summer school supports the development of a new generation of researchers contributing to Integrated Assessment Modeling and policy-relevant research across Europe and beyond.

🎓 Who should apply?

Postgraduate students and early researchers from universities, research institutes, or interested policy makers whose work focuses on exploring environmental and climate-related issues through data analysis, modeling, or other approaches. This includes:

  • Modeling of energy systems.
  • Ecological and environmental modeling.
  • Macroeconomic modeling related to sustainability and climate policy.

🏢 Speakers

Zoi Vrontisi has more than 15 years of professional and academic experience in energy and climate policy assessment. She is coordinating the Economic Analysis unit and contributes as a project coordinator and senior researcher in several EU funded research projects. Her research focus is on the macroeconomic analysis of climate transition and physical risks, just transition and sustainable development. She has a long experience in providing high-end, evidence-based consulting services for major international organizations and governments, on the interaction of “energy-economy-climate”, including carbon pricing and other climate and energy policies. She has a strong know-how in quantitative assessments with the application of sophisticated modelling tools, such as the large-scale CGE GEM-E3 model. In addition to her experience in E3-Modelling, she has worked for the European Commission, the Greek Ministry of Development, research institutes and the private sector. She was a member of the BoD of the Independent Power Transmission Operator of Greece and the Chairwoman of the National Center for the Environment and Sustainable Development of Greece. Zoi holds an Electrical and Computer Engineering 5-year degree from NTUA and a M.Sc. in Environmental Technology and Energy Policy from Imperial College and regularly publishes her research in high impact journals.

Jamie Pirie is a managing economist at Cambridge Econometrics with 10 years of professional experience delivering macroeconomic and energy system modelling. He leads the development and maintenance of the post-keynesian macro-econometric E3ME-FTT model which links together macroeconomic modelling with interactions with the energy systems and environmental outcomes. His focus is on the detailed assessment of the macroeconomic impacts of potential climate policy and technology pathways which he has delivered a range of international organisations and institutions including the European Commission, World Bank, European Climate Foundation and UK DESNZ.

Jonas Haas is a PhD student and researcher at Global Climate Forum (GCF) in Berlin investigating the economic impacts of climate change driven sea level rise. His work at GCF focuses on the economic valuation of adaptation strategies to sea-level rise and coastal flooding. In the DECIPHER project he develops cost-benefit modeling frameworks to evaluate coastal risk and adaptation using the state-of-the-art coastal model DIVACoast. His broader research interests encompass the long-term impacts of climate change on economic growth, adaptation to climate change and decision making under uncertainty. Jonas holds a Masters degree in Agricultural Economics from Humboldt University Berlin, with additional studies in Analytical Philosophy at the University of Barcelona, and a Bachelors in Economics from Free University of Berlin. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked as a Policy Officer at the German Solar Association, where he conducted market intelligence analysis.

Lars Honsel is a scientific assistant at the Global Climate Forum (GCF) and is currently enrolled in the master’s program Global Change Geography at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research interests include remote sensing, geoinformatics, and large-scale geospatial analysis, with a particular focus on coastal applications. His background in Geography and Informatics bridges his understanding of climate change dynamics and human–environment systems with the ability to abstract and translate these processes into computational models and spatial analysis. For his bachelor’s degree, he developed a method to assess the suitability of Managed Realignment along the German Baltic Sea coast and conducted a global assessment of population development in the coastal zone. He currently supports the Adaptation and Social Learning research group in developing the DIVACoast modelling framework. In his master’s thesis, Lars explores the use of image generation as a source of spatially explicit training data for image segmentation in remote sensing.

Reinhard Mechler has more than 25 years of experience with analysing and addressing socio-economic aspects of disaster and climate change risks. He provides evidence-based advice to a wide range of public and private sector stakeholders in order to improve resilience-focussed decision-making on disaster, climate and other risks. As the head of the ‘Systemic Risk and Resilience’ Group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), he currently leads a team of about 25 economists, political scientists, geographers, sociologists, ecologists and mathematicians. He is a visiting professor at the University of Oviedo and has been a visiting professor at the University of Graz, as well as a senior lecturer at the University for Economics and Business in Vienna.

Dr. Mechler has been leading and contributing to many international research and consultancy projects and is currently leading research for the Climate Resilience Alliance, which brings together researchers, international NGOs and the private sector to build disaster and climate resilience across the globe. He acted as a lead author on IPCC’s special report on adaptation to extreme events (SREX), the 5th assessment report, the report on 1.5 ° C global warming and the 6th assessment report.

  • Antoine Mendel, CLIMATE FINANCE ALPHA (CLIMAFIN)

Antoine Mandel is senior partner at CLIMAFIN and  professor of applied mathematics at University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and research fellow at the Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne & Paris School of Economics.  He holds a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from University Panthéon-Sorbonne and has been a post-doctoral fellow at the Potsdam Institute for Climate impact research. His works focuses on the development of mathematical and computational models of socio-economic dynamics and their applications to climate economics and finance. Antoine has contributed as a WP/unit leader in a dozen EU-funded interdisciplinary research projects on climate policy and climate impacts. He has also been a unit leader for two Marie Curie ITN projects and part of the steering committee of the European university Una Europa for the sustainability domain. He has published 2 books and over 50 articles in economics, mathematics and natural science journals. He is also part of the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. He is very active in scientific dissemination having founded the climate risk fintech CLIMAFIN and  being a member of two leading think tanks on climate policy: Climate Strategies and the Global Climate Forum.

Femke Nijsse, senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, is a systems modeller focussed on innovation and the energy transition. Her work encompasses the power sector, heating, transport, freight, with a specific interest in flexibility and sectoral interactions. She coordinates development of these sectors in the E3ME-FTT model, and researches which policies can accelerate the global transition to net zero.

Professor, former coordinator of teaching innovation and member of Loiola Law Clinic as Service-Learning innovative project at the Faculty of Law, part of the Institute of Cooperative Studies of the University of Deusto, and coordinator of the team Social Development, Economy, Development and Innovation for People (EDISPe) recognized by the Basque Government within the Basque University Area. Doctor in Economic and Business, with a thesis on Social Balance applied to Cooperatives, applying these proposals as External Consultant for the International Cooperative Alliance ACI-Americas. Research areas currently focus on social and solidarity economy, cooperativism, values and corporate social responsibility, service learning, entrepreneurship and social innovation, on which she has written articles and presented papers at national and international scientific conferences and meetings.

🧠 Programme Highlights

📍 Day 1: Foundation & Targeted Learning

  • Introduction to DECIPHER and goals of Summer School, tour de table for introductions and short bios ((0.5hr) [E3M, UDEUSTO)
  • Session 1: Ex-ante model-based macroeconomic assessment of climate and environmental policies (2hr incl. discussion) [E3M, CE]
  • Session 2: Intro to Modeling climate impacts due to sea level rise using global scale flood risk models & Hands-on session (2hr incl. discussion) [GCF]
  • Session 3: Presentation of ongoing research by participants (1.5hr) [participants]

📍 Day 2: Practical Applications & Research Integration

  • Session 4: Opportunities for considering risk and resilience in decision-making. On climate risks. Operationalising The Triple Resilience Dividend Framework (1hr) [IIASA]
  • Session 5: Scenario-contingent financial valuation and application to financial risk-management (1hr) [CLIMAFIN]
  • Session 6: Uncertainty and Innovation (1hr) [EXETER]
  • Session 7: Best Practices in Curriculum Development (1hr) [UDEUSTO]
  • Session 8: Working session with participants (students) on curriculum development (1hr) [UDEUSTO]
  • Session 9: Presentation of ongoing research by participants (1.5hr) [participants]
  • Final remarks and summer school closure [UDEUSTO]

 💸 Costs and Inclusions

Course Fee: Free
What’s included:
✅ Full access to sessions (on-site or online)
✅ All course materials
✅ On-site lunch plan

🛏️ Accommodation Support: The project will provide free accommodation for two nights (including breakfast) for 15 selected participants attending on-site in Bilbao.
Travel costs are not covered.

❗Please note: Participants are responsible for arranging their own travel and any additional nights of accommodation if needed.

📝 Application

Applicants are invited to submit the following documents:

  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Motivation letter (maximum 1 page): Please include how you expect the summer school may help you in your career/research purposes and also indicate how you heard about the summer school and if you have any affiliation within the DECIPHER project.
  • Abstract of research to be presented and discussed during the dedicated sessions.

📧 Send application and register here

🌐 More Info

📅 Stay tuned for more details, including the full agenda and registration information on the DECIPHER Project website. 📩 Subscribe to the DECIPHER Project Newsletter to receive project updates (confirm subscription via the email notification).

We look forward to welcoming you to Bilbao or online! 🚀

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