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In order to ensure accountability for each research project and provide feedback to improve overall
effectiveness, IGES has traditionally invited external experts to conduct a review at the end of each Phase.
The IGES external review examines to what extent studies and activities conducted in the Integrative
Strategic Research Programme for the Seventh Phase (ISRP7) satisfied the original targets and intentions of the
research, and what meaningful impacts have been made on important policy processes and targeted
stakeholders. Also important is how achievements made and lessons learnt in the ISRP7 could be properly
reflected into the implementation of the following/current Phase (ISRP8, FY2021-2024).
In recent phases at IGES, the scope of the external review has expanded significantly beyond research outputs
to capture impact generation by incorporating more discussion on engagement with important stakeholders.
Simultaneously, the review has been guided by the institute’s Medium-to-Long Term Strategy 2016-2025 (MLS)
approved by the IGES Board of Directors and Trustees in February 2016 with the following objectives:
• To elaborate the vision of IGES, reconfirming the basic principles prescribed in the Charter for the
Establishment of IGES and its mission, taking into account the value proposition of the institute;
• To set medium-to-long term goals for priority research areas, with a view to making significant progress in
contributing to social transition through fulfilling the IGES mission, taking into account global and regional
trends related to each area;
• To establish organisational strategies to meet the medium-to-long term goals; and
• To provide directions for an enhanced institutional basis to support the implementation of the strategy.
With a vision for IGES to act as an agent of change to make Asia and the rest of the world more sustainable
launched in the Sixth Phase (ISRP6), IGES continues to make efforts in generating impacts in ISRP7, especially
by strengthening actions with key stakeholders, not only national governments but also local governments and
the private sector, in meeting global targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris
Agreement. For this purpose, the following units were organised for ISRP7:
• Three Issue Areas: Climate and Energy (CE), Natural Resources and Ecosystem Services (NRE), and
Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP)
• Two Functional Centres: Centre for Strategic and Quantitative Analysis (QAC), and Centre for Sustainability
Governance (SGC)
• Three Taskforces: City (CTY), Finance (FIN), and Business (BIZ)
• Five Satellite Offices: Kansai Research Centre (KRC), Kitakyushu Urban Centre (KUC), Bangkok Regional
Centre (BRC), Beijing Office (BJG), and Tokyo Sustainability Forum (TSF)
At the same time, IGES renewed its operation and management mode that enables more efficient and effective
support for the implementation of the ISRP7 by creating the Strategic Management Office (SMO) and each of
the three sections therein setting institute-wide goals:
• SMO: Knowledge and Communications (KC), Research and Publications (RP), and Planning and Management
(PM)
In the Seventh Phase external review, the reviews were conducted for both overall IGES (IGES as a whole) and
each individual research unit, based on the self-evaluation reports prepared by IGES and other supporting
documents in the period of November 2021 - February 2022. For the former, the SMO presented the institutewide
achievements in the review meeting and received comments, suggestions and oral evaluation from the
reviewers. For the latter, each research unit received written review reports from one to three reviewers. This
External Review Report contains the results of all the reviews above and will be presented at the IGES Board of
Directors and Trustees meetings in May 2022.
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The remainder of this report is comprised of the review procedure (Section II) and a summary of the review for
both the institute overall and for individual units (Section III). Other related documents are included in
Appendices: Arrangements made for the overall review meeting in February 2022 (Appendix A), written
evaluation reports received by research units (Appendix B) and a Self-evaluation report by IGES (Appendix C).
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