The new Executive Director of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR), Dr.Rüdiger Klein took office in July 2014 after being appointed to the position for a two-year tenure during the IRDR International Conference in June.

A German national, Dr Klein holds a PhD of SOAS (University of London), where he examined the economic, social and cultural ties between Iran, the Arabian/Persian Gulf and India.

He has worked as a researcher and consultant in North Africa, the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula, in Central and South Asia. He held research positions and was awarded fellowships in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the UK and the US.

Dr Klein worked for several years at the “European Science Foundation” in Strasbourg (France), the association of more than 80 national funding agencies, where he was responsible for large-scale interdisciplinary programmes and for a portfolio “research and foresight”.

Before joining IRDR, Dr Klein was at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he served as Director of the “European Federation of National Academies”, which brings together more than 50 National Academies of Sciences from across Europe. He was responsible for a number of science policy initiatives, such as the Digital Agenda (Open Science and Innovation), Science and Ethics, Europe-International Science and Technology cooperation and capacity building (especially with Africa and Asia). He served as advisor and evaluator to several international organizations, including UN agencies and the World Bank.

IRDR is a decade-long research program co-sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).  The IRDR International Programme Office (IPO) is based at the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), Chinese Academy of Science (CAS).