BMI – IIASA Joint Conference

Every year, the Boris Mints Institute organizes a major international event around one or two of the global challenges that the Institute has been engaged with and contributed to strategic policy solutions towards mitigating or solving it. The Boris Mints Institute has been heavily invested in the past decade in contributing to research towards mitigating the growing water shortage in the MENA region and globally.

This year, between October 28th-29th, the Institute co-sponsored with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria and the globally leading research center IIASA (https://iiasa.ac.at/), located at Laxenburg near Vienna, “Together for Water: Science Diplomacy to Advance Regional Cooperation in MENA”. This unique workshop showcased how science-based dialogue can meaningfully support cooperation in one of the world’s most water-stressed and war-stricken regions in the world.

Hosted together with IIASA in Laxenburg, Austria, the event brought together diplomats, researchers, practitioners, and civil-society representatives from 22 different countries to examine shared challenges and solution to the growing water shortage in the region. Dignitaries of the highest status, from Egypt, Libya, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Morocco and Tel Aviv University, engaged in friendly and concrete discussions highlighting the value of integrating scientific evidence with regional perspectives to strengthen policy planning, improve resilience, and create trust-building mechanisms across the MENA region.

For the Boris Mints Institute, this workshop underscored the importance of sustained, structured engagement around water security — a core pillar of our mission to promote strategic policy solutions to global challenges. The insights generated at the event provide a foundation for future joint initiatives, analytical work, and regional dialogues aimed at transforming shared water risks into shared opportunities. This gathering marks an important step forward, reinforcing the role of science diplomacy as a bridge between knowledge and action, and opening new venues of engagement for the Institute at the highest echelon of science and diplomacy in the MENA region, Europe and globally. For more information: https://iiasa.ac.at/news/nov-2025/together-for-water-science-diplomacy-to-advance-regional-cooperation-in-mena