Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

Global risks and vulnerable society: background 
to the planned reform
Our society is facing growing challenges as a result 
of processes of global change, particularly climate 

---

90
Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020
change, as well as unsustainable globalisation pro-
cesses and the dwindling supply of raw materials. 
The government’s duty to ensure people’s livelihood 
is thus becoming a key priority in policy terms, mean-
ing that the challenges in geology, geophysics, mete-
orology and climatology are growing ever greater. 
Models for the sustainable development of society 
and the economy need to be developed and the nec-
essary transformation processes have to be guided 
by evidence. This will require renewable and non-re-
newable raw materials and energy sources to be han-
dled carefully. In addition, the regional and global 
geo-environmental limits on extracting resources and 
generating emissions will need to be taken into ac-
count just as much as the ability of the economy and 
society to respond efficiently and effectively to unex-
pected disruptions. All institutions engaged in rele-
vant activities will need quality-assured data and in-
formation to overcome these challenges. The only 
way in which the complexity of an ecosystem’s pro-
cesses, as illustrated in Fig. 1-36, will be able to be 
grasped and understood is through interdisciplinary 
research strategies.
The increasing vulnerability of our society and 
economy to natural disasters calls for a complete re-
think in disaster response and, in particular, a preven-
tive approach to dealing with disaster risks that is 
more broad-based and focused more clearly on 
Fig. 1-36: The interactions between human activities, the composition of the atmosphere, chemical and physical