Integrated Sustainability Analysis
@ The University of Sydney

Project R�union is a collaboration between the top global institutions involved in the compilation of global extended Multi-Region Input-Output (MRIO) databases, with participants from TNO Delft/CML Leiden, the University of Groningen, the OECD, Purdue University, the Institute of Developing Economies of the Japan External Trade Organisation (IDE-JETRO), the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, and the University of Sydney. The goal of Project R�union was to coordinate worldwide activities on environmentally-extended MRIO database compilation.

The idea for this collaboration originated from a meeting of MRIO leaders at the 18^th Input-Output Conference held in 2010 at the University of Sydney. This meeting clearly demonstrated the great opportunities of a world MRIO network for shaping environmental databases, sustainability research and environmental policy around the world. The University of Sydney under its IPDF scheme, as well as IDE-JETRO, provided seed funds in order to enable these leaders in the field to meet three times, and to implement a global collaboration.

The first Project R�union meeting was held in L'Hermitage-les-Bains, R�union Island, 27-29 March 2011. Following this meeting, IDE-JETRO made available funds for a third meeting, which was scheduled ahead of the second R�union meeting, held in Tokyo, Japan, during 30 January - 2 February 2012.

As a first concrete step, Project R�union members agreed, during their third 2013 meeting in Kurokawa Onsen, Kyushu, Japan, to aim at demonstrating the ability to generate, based on unified data pools and construction pipelines, a set of global MRIO databases expressed in the regional and sectoral classifications of some of the prominent MRIO tables existing at the time. In 2013, Project R�union received funding from the Australian Research Council under its Discovery Project DP130101293, in order to undertake a three-year research project entitled "Unifying global approaches to multi-regional input-output analysis and environmental footprinting".

The participants of Project R�union are (in alphabetical order)

• Prof Erik Dietzenbacher for the WIOD project at the University of Groningen, Netherlands;
• Prof Satoshi Inomata for the Asian IO project at IDE/JETRO, Japan;
• Prof Manfred Lenzen, for the AISHA project at ISA, Sydney University, Australia;
• Prof Bart Los for the WIOD project at the University of Groningen, Netherlands;
• Dr Bo Meng for the Asian IO project at IDE/JETRO, Japan;
• Dr Glen Peters for CICERO, Norway;
• Prof Arnold Tukker for the EXIOPOL project at TNO, Netherlands;
• Prof Terrie Walmsley for the GTAP project at Purdue University, USA;
• Prof Tommy Wiedmann for the University of New South Wales, Australia;
• Dr Norihiko Yamano for the OECD, Paris;

The founding members of the R�union Project. From left to right: Satoshi Inomata, Manfred Lenzen, Tommy Wiedmann, Bart Los, Terrie Walmsley, Arnold Tukker, and Erik Dietzenbacher.

Project R�union was officially closed on 31 March 2017, with the publication of the Special Issue on Virtual Laboratories for collaborative input-output analysis, published in Economic Systems Research as Vol. 29, Issue 2.

In order to demonstrate the capability of the Virtual Laboratory technology to create time series of MRIO tables in flexible regional and sectoral formats, Project R�union has generated a set of MRIO data available for download. Access is by password; first-time users please click here to register. Note that these data sets are preliminary in the sense that they are the first output of the Project's Global MRIO Laboratory. In a first stage, users are invited to provide observations and constructive suggestions that can be used by the Project R�union team to improve data quality. Depending on user feedback, the opening of the Global MRIO Laboratory for research use is envisaged in a second stage.

For further information please contact