Most people avoid uncertainties if possible. In many important situations, however, a decision must be made under uncertainty. Even more challenging, when it comes to controversial topics, we usually do not have frequentist information, but have to rely on experts’ assessments. Scientists know that almost all risk assessments are associated with uncertainties, while lay people may be less aware that uncertainty is an integral part of science. There is a lack of research examining how experts’ assessments should be communicated to the public so that they are correctly understood. We will show that lay people often do not expect uncertainties associated with scientific outcomes, and it is often a challenge for them do understand uncertainties. One aim of uncertainty communication may be to increase trust in the findings. Results of our experiments suggest, however, that the communication of uncertainty does not increase, but in some cases decrease trust in the outcome. Uncertainty communication may, therefore, have some unwanted side effects.

Of all the information that we (knowingly and unknowingly) share in digital surroundings, health and genomic data might be among the most valuable for researchers. As this data is considered particularly sensitive information, health research efforts using this data raise a couple of pressing issues regarding people’s preferences and privacy concerns. Thus, in two online experiments (first experiment: N = 333; second experiment: data collection not yet concluded), we aim at contributing to an understanding of people’s reported willingness-to-share their health and genomic data for science (WTS). For this, both psychological and situational factors (e.g., risk and benefit perceptions, social trust, data recipient, type of data) were considered. Results suggest that benefit perception appears to be the key factor regarding people’s WTS, while risks were less salient. People seem to be driven by (mostly) altruistic motives of improving public health and contributing to the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. While people expressed some concern regarding the privacy of their data, this did not have a significant impact on their WTS. However, in light of the emerging public discourse and data scandals (e.g., Facebook sharing personal data with private company for profit), these factors should not be disregarded, as people’s risk perceptions and their role for WTS might increase. Especially in the sensitive area of health, medical and genomic data future risk and psychological research should strive to understand people’s shifting perceptions and preferences.

People depend on information to form an opinion on a new technology. Nowadays, much of this information stems from the Internet, in particular from social media platforms. In case an individual is uncertain about a topic, (s)he may rely on views expressed on social media, a phenomenon that is called social proof. These views are often presented by individuals who are unknown to the platform user, and their identity claims can often not be verified. An important question is to what extent such views and opinions expressed on social media affect the individual’s perceptions and attitudes regarding a new technology. Another relevant question is to what extent such an effect depends on the individual’s prior attitude toward the technology and his perceived expertise regarding the topic. In an online experiment (n=290), the content of four comments on a fictitious Facebook post was manipulated (4 positive comments; 4 negative comments; 2 positive & 2 negative comments). The application of nanotechnology in food was taken as topic for the study. Data have been collected and the analysis is underway. First results indicate that the valence of the comments had a significant effect on risk perception, benefit perception and the attitude toward nanotechnology in food. Participants who read the negative comments, scored higher on risk perception and lower on benefit perception and attitude. Significant moderator effects were observed for prior attitude and the perceived level of expertise regarding food products. Results will be presented and the implications for risk communication will be discussed.

Interest in the public perception of risks related to activities with hazardous materials in the chemical sector is increasing in the Netherlands. One of the policy objectives of the responsible ministry in the Netherlands is 'a healthy, clean and safe living environment that is also experienced as such'. At the request of the ministry, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) developed a tool to measure perceptions of risk and safety with regard to activities involving hazardous substances: the ‘Perception Thermometer’ . This tool consists of a questionnaire that was tested in two cities: a city with few chemical companies and a city near a cluster of chemical industries.

In total, 14% of the 8.000 send questionnaires were completed and returned (N=1093). Factor analyses indicated a distinction between risk perception and five other separate constructs related to perceptions of safety, satisfaction of living environment (strongest relationship), confidence that government bodies and companies can prevent an accident from happening, trust in emergency services, self-efficacy and response efficacy (in order of the strength of the relationship with risk perception). The pilot study also indicated, that residents of the city with a few chemical companies (N= 606) experience the safety of their living environment more positively than the residents of the city near a chemical cluster (N=487).

Based on these two pilot studies, it is concluded that the questionnaire is a valid tool for measuring feelings of safety. The tool can be applied on a national level. Measurements can also be repeated to reveal trends over time. Some improvements to the questionnaire are recommended. The order of some questions should be revised, since the results of the factor analysis indicated that different topics were regarded as one construct. In addition, the factor analysis showed that a number of statements about health and safety risks may be superfluous. Finally, regarding the application of the tool, the method for approaching respondents can be reconsidered to increase the response rate for some groups.

There is a considerable number of accidents with chemicals in the domestic environment. Following medical drugs, chemical household products are most frequently involved in these accidents. Often, these accidents could have been prevented by following the official recommendations for safe use of household chemicals. The aim of the research project was to find out how these products are perceived by consumers and which factors have an influence on risk perception of chemical household products.

For this, two online surveys were conducted. The first survey was distributed in 8 European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom) with roughly N = 700 per country. The second survey, with approximately N = 1000, was distributed in Switzerland (German-, French- and Italian-speaking part of Switzerland) and aimed at producing more in-depth insight.

The results show that high risk perception is related to safe self-reported behaviour. However, consumers rely on analytical information, as well as heuristic and potentially irrelevant information to evaluate the risk of chemical household products. It could also be shown that consumers have different associations depending on the specific product and that these associations do not only reflect varying degrees of risk perception, but also common misperceptions.

In the context of hazardous chemicals accidents, this study explored the relationship between community participation and people’s protective action and mediate the role of risk perception. Based on the protective action decision model, the conceptual model in this study was built. 1700 questionnaires were collected from six cities in China (N=1700) where has typical characteristics of hazardous chemicals accidents. Results showed that: (1) Two kinds of community participation, ritual participation, and substantive participation, both haven’t positive direct influence on protective action, even the substantive community participation has negative direct influence. (2) Four kinds of risk perception (threat perception, resource-related protective action perception, hazard-related protective action perception, stakeholder perception) have a different mediate role in the influence way of two kinds of community participation on the protective action. All four kinds of risk perception take the mediate role in the way from ritual participation to protective action although the mediating effect of threat perception is very small, while only stakeholder perception takes the mediate role in the way from substantive participation to protective action. (3) There are also internal influence relationship among four kinds of risk perception. Resource-related protective action perception is positively influenced by both threat perception and hazard-related protective action perception, at the same time, hazard-related protective action perception also has a positive significant influence on stakeholder perception. Implications for practice and future study are also discussed.

In response to the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, the Irish Government began an audit of apartment fire safety. The review called for further research into “the extent to which fire safety measures are in place in peoples’ homes and the public’s understanding of risk in the domestic setting with a view to informing further fire safety campaigns” (NDFEM, 2018, p.24). In a direct response to this call, we address three research objectives related to apartment fires: 1) to identify current fire safety awareness and preparedness; 2) to explore the factors which act as a barrier or facilitator of good fire safety; and 3) to examine the risk rating applied to apartment fires by residents.

Data were gathered, using self-administered questionnaires, from over 300 residential apartments in Ireland. Descriptive statistics, combined with probit analysis, were used to estimate the relationship between explanatory variables (risk perception; perceived responsibility for fire safety; coping appraisals; worry;) and the dependents (perceived preparedness; actual preparedness; having a household fire/evacuation plan; reported fire alarm response behaviour; and smoke detector testing).

We reviewed firstly the residents’ preparedness by examining their declared level of preparedness and their awareness of protective actions. Of the 33.1% who reported taking no preparedness action, 42.8% did not know what action they should take.

Using an extended version of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), we identified the variables that influence preparedness. While the models showed great variation in the significance of the explanatory variables, a number of important findings emerged. For example, our study showed that perceived and actual household preparedness was significant and positively influenced by residents perceiving they had at least a shared responsibility for fire safety in the building. Conversely, no relationship was observed between responsibility for fire safety and the presence of household fire plans, appropriate fire alarm response behaviour, or smoke detector testing.

Finally, we asked residents to rate the risk posed by fire within their apartment building. Using the Irish risk rating methodology (McMullan et al, 2018), residents gave fire a mean risk rating of 13.03 out of a possible 25.

Our study makes two key contributions. Firstly, it contributes to a greater understanding of the impact which “responsibility” has on fire safety behaviour. Secondly, we extend PMT and apply it in a residential fire setting (previous studies examined wildfires) and, using marginal effect calculations, revealed the probability that respondents present with positive fire safety behaviours.

Our society faces a carbon dilemma whereby there is an imbalance between our need for carbon and the dark side of its utilization. Unlike electricity, heat and mobility sectors where a transition towards renewable energy sources is possible, the chemical industry has no alternative to carbon sources for its production. In Germany, the chemical industry is under pressure to reevaluate its dependence on imported crude oil as raw material and to undergo a carbon transition which is based on the sustainable utilization of domestic primary and secondary carbon feedstock alternatives. While industry and political interest in different carbon transition options is observable, decision-makers can be paralyzed by indecision when faced with multiple considerations along the social-technological-economical-environmental-political (STEEP) dimensions which make it highly challenging for them to obtain a systemic overview of direct and indirect risks as well as opportunities which are associated with diverse carbon alternatives.

To support a holistic appraisal of risks and opportunities which are associated with the utilization of domestic carbon feedstock alternatives for chemical production, this study carried out (1) a systematic literature review to identify sustainability indicators which are commonly utilized in integrated assessment, and (2) a case analysis based on the German chemical industry to assess the strengths, weaknesses and gaps of the identified indicators in supporting decision processes for a transition towards a circular carbon economy.

First, an extensive literature review (n = 3640) based on pre-defined keywords supported the identification of indicators which are commonly utilized in integrated assessment of technologies and resources. Next, the identified indicators are categorized into 9 criteria which are then summarized into 4 main dimensions namely technology, economy, environment and society. Results showed that integrated assessments predominantly evaluated quantifiable risks along technical, environmental and economic dimensions. Strikingly, while quantifiable social risks are considered to some extent, qualitative social aspects relating to risk perception and societal acceptance are not included in current integrated assessments. Similarly, risks and opportunities along the political dimension (e.g. supply security and regulatory developments) are neglected.

During the presentation, based on a case study analysis of the German chemical industry, the strengths and weakness of the identified indicators in supporting decision processes, as well as the value of integrating qualitative social and political indicators in supporting decision-makers in obtaining a holistic overview of the complex decision environment to support their risk evaluation of diverse carbon transition options will be discussed.

The transition from a high carbon to a low carbon paradigm resembles previous transition processes (e.g. from plan to market, or from dictatorship to democracy) in that it will fundamentally change societies and economic systems. At the same time, it arguably is significantly more ‘engineered’ in the sense that – compared to, say, revolutionary processes – the end state is well defined, and worked towards, for instance in the shape of nationally or regionally defined decarbonization targets. Because of the deep interdependencies built into the incumbent economic system – not the least a function of the historic development of the energy system – these rather decentralized policy choices are likely to send ripple effects back into the system, with implications for third actors or countries. The low carbon transition may also run counter to established modes of production in a globalized economy as it implies an inherently more localized energy supply, and with it arguably more fragmented industrial structures. These deep structural changes triggered by the global energy transition may, therefore, come with the risk of unintended consequences. This article defines the key properties of the unfolding global energy transition, and discusses them against the backdrop of a systemic risk approach. The article describes the key elements of systemic risk, a novel approach in risk research, and offers a categorization of possible risk characteristics of the energy transition. Though primarily conceptual in nature, the article also offers implications for a forward-looking policy approach to the global energy transition.

Humanity has entered a stage where the integrity of our global environment and our own existence are in clear and present danger. The world currently experiences the simultaneous unfolding of two major transformative trends – globalization and digitalization - and the aspiration for a third: sustainabilization. The interaction of these three global trends as well as major counter trends has the ability to profoundly change the socio-economic and environmental systems upon which our survival depends.

Consequently, the scientific community (broadly encompassing social science, natural science, and humanities) is faced with a fundamental responsibility that has both internal and outward-facing aspects. The internal aspect concerns the organization and reward structures of research and education to facilitate effective interdisciplinarity and capacity for addressing complex system issues. The external aspect is substantive engagement in mutual learning with policy makers and practitioners in business and civil society. The science community must engage with other parts of society in comprehending processes of change and in designing strategies for change and catalyzing pathways to far-reaching and fundamental transformations at global to local scales. An important part of that process is understanding and supporting transitions from current unsustainable practices to more sustainable pathways. For example, this means understanding the impacts on the planet and society of the enormous physical and economic infrastructure related to fossil fuel use and developing comprehensive and contextually appropriate ways to phase out fossil fuels and incorporate renewable energy systems. This requires a profound change to integrative research methods that are well suited for addressing complex systems issues, such as posed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

To address those challenges, the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies IASS and Arizona State University launched the “Global Sustainability Strategy Forum” (GSSF). It is aiming to develop an evidence-informed judgment on challenges and solutions. It views sustainability as closely-coupled societal and environmental challenges that require integration of multiple disciplines, new research methods, and knowledge sources with sensitivity to regional and cultural diversities.

There are currently over 40 million victims of modern slavery world-wide, including over 13,000 in the UK. Victims of modern slavery are typically manipulated or held against their will, often under the threat of violence, to ensure their economic exploitation in various guises ranging from domestic servitude, human trafficking, and debt bondage, to child labour. While reports of high profile cases, such as controversies surrounding the 2020 Qatar World Cup construction project are helping to highlight the problems of extreme labour conditions and thrust concerns into the public spotlight, incidences of modern slavery more often evade external scrutiny because they characteristically take place behind ‘normal business’ practices and are contained within hidden pockets of complex global supply chains that provide consumer products, goods and services. New global ‘sustainability goals’ and national regulatory acts that subsequently focus on identifying human rights abuses and eradicating modern slavery from a risk management angle in response to these challenges are to be welcomed. However, current understanding of the risks of modern slavery in corporate supply chains is lacking, and research from a risk management perspective is scarce. Addressing these gaps, this paper presents findings from a Delphi study, made up of cross-sector expertise from Supply Chain Managers, Non-Governmental Organisations, and University Academics, supplemented by a follow-up in-depth focus group discussion. Responses from across the groups provide key insights into expert views about the importance of various components, drivers and barriers to the effective identification and management of modern slavery risk in corporate supply chains, as well as the levels of confidence supporting these judgements. Our findings also uncovered important differences in the respective knowledges, attributions, and approaches taken by members of each group. We discuss the implications of these findings and the potential for reconciling different perspectives, before concluding that respective parties would benefit from greater collaboration and knowledge exchange in order to widen their understanding of the problems faced and to work together towards eradicating modern slavery from supply chains.

Cybersecurity is often addressed as a technical problem. However, it is important for private and public decision makers to know how much investment is efficient to make in reducing cyber system vulnerabilities, compared to promoting other organizational objectives. In the past twenty years a sizeable literature has emerged addressing this question.

An early and influential contribution to this literature was the “Gordon and Loeb” model (hereafter the GL Model). It was based on “cyber security breech functions” showing the degree of cybersecurity risk reduction with additional investment in cyber protection. For these cybersecurity breech functions, the GL Model showed that the economically-efficient level of cyber system investment was never more than 37% of the damages that would occur from a breech in the system.

A sizable literature has arisen that expands upon the GL model. Research has explored different cybersecurity breech functions, decision-making with risk aversion, decision making in the presence of budget constraints, and the possibility of positive cyber investment externalities. Common to all of this literature is a static framework, in which the effects of the decision-making all fall within one period, and an assumption that the relationship between investments in cybersecurity and resulting cybersecurity protection is constant returns to scale.

In this paper, we use a dynamic optimal control formulation in a more realistic model in which cybersecurity investments have intertemporal effects, and production processes can assume different scales. In this set up, cybersecurity in the current period depends on a cumulated stock of cyber infrastructure, in addition to expenditures made within the period to maintain and upgrade it. The sum of expenditures in this period, less the depreciation rate, gives the cyber security protection that exists at the start of the next period. The optimal investment level is determined taking this basic relationship into account, and the rate of return that could be earned on an alternative investment (the “discount rate”). Reflecting infinitively lived corporations and public institutions, the investment path is optimized over an infinite horizon.

We find that the results in the GL literature correspond to a special case (depreciation rate 100%; discount rate zero). In the more realistic and general cases evaluated, steady-state investment levels differ significantly from those in the GL literature. Our findings have important implications for the cybersecurity investment level that is economically efficient for private and public organizations to make.

The vulnerability of key infrastructures to cyberattacks has become increasingly apparent. In the literature, the exploitation costs faced by adversaries are central to the analysis of such vulnerability, in both decision theoretic and game theoretic approaches. Yet exploitation costs remain inputs to risk models, and it is unclear how such costs behave and how should they be estimated. Our aim has therefore been to develop a systematic framework for assessing cybersecurity risk through exploitation cost.

The first stage of the work has been to carry out semi-structured interviews with cybersecurity risk assessment practitioners, in order to analyse how their heuristics deal with exploitation cost. Although none of the informants had formal ways of estimating adversaries’ exploitation costs, many of their observations were based on knowledge or intuitions about these costs. For example they described the practice of categorising adversaries in order to predict what exploitation costs they will experience and be deterred by.

The second stage, still underway, involves a further set of semi-structured interviews with ‘offensive cybersecurity’ practitioners, and an analysis of their knowledge of exploitation costs. These interviews involve eliciting the cost factors associated with circumventing the risk controls indicated by a standard cybersecurity model. They are supplemented with an exploration of the markets for adversarial tools and services.

The third stage of the work has been to develop a framework for reasoning systematically about adversary exploitation cost as a basis for risk assessment. The framework is based on the idea of a compromise graph showing the paths that adversaries can take in order to inflict a specific harm (such as making a physical intervention in an infrastructure system). The arcs in each path are given distributional estimates of exploitation cost. These estimates in turn come from a resource-process-cost scheme in which each arc (for example a zero-day exploit for a particular vulnerability) is linked to the resources required by the adversary (for example a certain skill level), the processes operating on the resources (for example acquisition, maintenance or development) and the costs incurred through these processes. The compromise graph then shows estimates of the costs associated with different paths. An assessment can then be made of the efficiency of risk controls in terms of the ratio of incremental exploitation cost to control cost.

We consider differential games corresponding to conflict situations in which players choose strategies over time. In this context, typical applications include defense, counter-terrorism, finance and cybersecurity. Attempts to solve differential games have focused mostly on game theory based on variants of Nash equilibria, but this is not satisfactory in many of the above applications since beliefs and preferences of adversaries will not be readily available, frequently violating game theory common knowledge assumptions. Alternatively, Adversarial Risk Analysis (ARA) supports one of the players (defender), minimising her subjective expected costs, while treating the adversaries' (attackers') decisions as random variables. To do so, ARA models the attackers' decision-making problems and, under assumptions about their rationality, tries to assess their probabilities and utilities, acknowledging uncertainty, to predict their (random) optimal actions. Our approach is illustrated through a botnet defense example developed in Bensoussan (2010) under a game theoretical perspective. Botnets are networks of computers infected with malicious programs that allow cyber-criminals (botnet herders) to control the infected machines remotely without the user’s knowledge. In the example, a botnet herder pursues economic profits by intensifying his intrusion in a network of computers while a defender tries to mitigate the botnet herder’s intrusion. The percentage of infected computers in the network evolves according to a modified SIS epidemic model. We provide an ARA solution and compare it to the game theoretical one.

Abstract: Many risks always exist in the power industry as its supply and demand are affected by numerous stochastic internal and external factors. The number and magnitude of technological, economic, social and environment changes in industry are accelerating. The power industry is faced with uncertain dimensions, where other forms of energy come into play, such as oil and gas supplies. Cyber-attack is the most drastic pressure on the industry. Local and remote attacks occur often, which require a comprehensive command system to deal with them. Resiliency strategies must prevent and mitigate cyber-attacks ahead of time, while crisis management procedures manage such attacks as they occur by. Implications and damages are kept to a minimum for business continuity. In this paper, we review the existing literature and background of power industry to identify the main factors and relationships. We use Iran Ministry of energy case as a developing country with many sources of natural energies as well as an extensive network of electric power. A recent Staxnet case is to used to illustrate the magnitude of issues and shortcomings in the current system of cyber-attack response. We use future study approach to consider several scenarios of plausible future for power industries. We then utilize the standard Incident Command System (ICS) processes for systematic dealing with Cyber risks and uncertainties in the electric power industries. Optimization and simulation models are used also to evaluate and compare various strategies to respond to various circumstances.

Key words: Cyber-attack, Resiliency, Power Industry, Iran, Incident Command System, Risk, Energy.

Societal controversies associated with the introduction of novel technologies have demonstrated that societal acceptance of a technology and its applications is largely shaped by perceived risks and benefits. Our study investigates public perceptions of nanotechnology in Singapore, where technological innovation is an established part of the economy. Participants of the study were 1080 individuals living in Singapore. They completed a questionnaire asking their risk and benefit perceptions of nanotechnology applications in different domains, as well as their level of knowledge and concerns about these applications. Participants also provided demographic information such as gender, age, and ethnicity. The results suggest that participants are most concerned about nanotechnology applications in the food domain. Two-step cluster analysis of data enabled grouping of participants into “less concerned” and “more concerned,” based on their average scores for concern levels regarding nanotechnology applications in different domains. Profiling of these clusters revealed that, apart from demographic factors, receiving risk information rather than (un)familiarity resulted in greater concerns about nanotechnology and its applications. Our results provide evidence upon which regulatory agencies and industries can base policies regarding informed risk-benefit communication and management associated with the introduction of commercial applications of nanotechnology.

Synthetic biology as a novel multidisciplinary area of research has potential to deliver various agrifood applications, yet societal concerns about the resulting risks and ethical issues exist. It is therefore important to understand public perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the technology per se as well as its applications for better long-term commercialisation trajectory. In this paper, we listed synthetic biology-based applications in the agrifood sector and reviewed the existing research on related media portrayal and public responses. The results showed current media coverage on synthetic biology is not biased towards negative coverage and instead over-promoted about its potential. Also, people are not inherently averse to it as an enabling technology. Most studies suggetsed the major role of perceived benefits and risks in shaping public attitudes, and people’s perceptions and attitudes varied according to different applications, based on which some public’s prioritised applications were elicited. However, despite the limited literature, some research gaps were identified from the included studies, for instance, the concentration on the technology per se rather than specific applications, and unbalanced or inaccurate information provided to participants. As a result, future research should consider the quality of information prepared for participants and be conducted on a case-by-case basis, which not only helps better understand the public views but facilitates the societally-inclusive development, commercialisation and governance of synthetic biology applied in the agrifood sector.

Fewer than 30 percent of U.S males in the recommended age range receive the Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines (CDC, 2017b). Each year about 13,300 throat/neck cancer cases related to HPV are diagnosed in U.S. men and 3600 men die (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2017c; Fox, 2017; National Cancer Institute, 2018). Approximately 13,000 U.S. women in the U.S. are diagnosed with HPV related cervical cancer each year and an estimated 4200 women die (cancer.net, 2018). There are diagnostic HPV tests for females but not for males. While HPV related cancers are on the decline for females there has been an increase of 400 percent of HPV related throat and neck cancers in males (Mount Sinai Hospital, 2014). Thus, HPV vaccinations for boys are necessary to reverse the rising trajectory of HPV related cancer in males.

The purpose of this study was to examine sources of information parents used in decision making as it related to having their children vaccinated for HPV. A total of 293 respondents (n = 199 mothers and n = 94 fathers) participated in the survey. Respondents reported that 175 of their children had received the HPV vaccinations (n = 91 daughters and n = 84 sons) while 118 had not (n = 53 daughters and n = 65 sons).

Parents who had their child vaccinated reported that they first became aware of the vaccine from their physician (n = 146) and parents who had not had their child vaccinated reported that they first became aware of the vaccine from an advertisement (n = 75).

Respondents viewed two 30-second Merck commercials for the Gardasil HPV vaccine. One commercial focused on girls and the other commercial focused on boys. Seventy-five percent of the respondents identified that the HPV vaccines protected females from cervical cancer. No type of cancer was specified in the commercial that focused on boys. There were significant differences between mothers and fathers on the risks dimensions of reducing the dread associated with HPV related cancer, F (2, 290) = 4.83, p = .009 and reducing the risks associated with HPV related cancer, F (2, 288) = 3.58, p = .029. No significant differences were found on the risk dimensions regarding the benefit of the vaccines in preventing HPV or of having control over their child’s future health.

While risk and vulnerability can be seen as continua, a disaster is but a moment or materialization of these underlying conditions. Dynamic changes of vulnerability and hazard phenomena also mean that risk is non-static; it changes over time and these changes have to be considered when applying specific assessments, as well as when developing corrective (current risk) or prospective (future risk) interventions. It is widely accepted that the analysis of risk and vulnerability is based on conceptual frameworks, which support the identification of drivers, factors and indicators. What is the link between such assessments and the perceptions of risk?

In terms of the underlying theoretical concept, the MOVE framework (Birkmann et al 2013) is based on and refers to general systems theory, cybernetics and interlinked systems theory. Compared with the linear understanding of feedback and response processes held by cybernetic theory and the idea that systems can be steered more or less easily, the MOVE framework is based on the understanding that risks also involve complexity and the emergence of different vulnerability as well as response patterns to observed risks. Current perspectives on adaptation, vulnerability, and risk to climate change developed from systems thinking within the socio-ecological systems school have made some advances in integrating power dynamics into models of risk.

In a case study for floods (Kienberger et al. 2014), the framework was operationalised with the objective to model homogenous regions of vulnerability independent of administrative boundaries. Being independent from such arbitrary and a priori geographies, we aimed to represent vulnerability as place-based phenome. This provides (1) an integrative and at the same time decomposable assessment of vulnerability and (2) the opportunity for place-specific (e.g., where are hot spots?) identification of appropriate intervention measures (what to address? and where?). The approach chosen builds on the concept of “geons” which has been defined “as spatial units that are homogenous in terms of varying space-time phenomena under policy concern”. Vulnerability units or regions are a subtype of such geons, labelled “integrated geons”.

In this presentation we highlight the need for a systemic understanding of risk and its components of exposure and vulnerability and demonstrate on how such a framework can be operationalised for improved spatial decision making. The presentation will also critically reflect on requirements for such assessments to be used in practice.

2019 is the 20th anniversary of the second devastating earthquake of the Turkish history. In August 17, 1999, an earthquake with the magnitude 7.4 hit the Marmara region. The death toll reached more than 17,000, number of injuries was around 44,000 out of approximately 40% were permanently disabled. During the last 20 years, two big earthquakes occurred in Turkey: Bingöl Earthquake in 2003 and Van Earthquake in 2011. At the same period, Turkish audiences witnessed earthquakes in Sumatra, Haiti, Bam, Sichuan, Tohoku and Nepal through broadcasts. All these disasters reminded the last devastating one to whom had experienced it and kept concerns on earthquake fresh. In 2003 and 2008, two comprehensive risk perception studies were conducted in Istanbul. Even though independent evaluation of these two studies shows lower perception of risk and limited activities and willingness in mitigation; their comparison indicates a notable improvement. Another study has been conducted in 2019 to assess shifts on risk perception and mitigation activities. The results are intriguing regarding to different aspects. Firstly, the perception of young generation (born just before or after the 1999 earthquake) shows the effectiveness of both national earthquake risk reduction campaigns and compulsory curriculum at schools. Second, the success level of urban regeneration law which had been issued to provide safe physical environment for inhabitants, is evaluated. Third, risk ranking due to recent events and coping capacity of Istanbul citizens are presented.

Climate change and globalisation have radically increased the risk of infection with rare, high consequence infectious diseases (HCID), like EBOLA or SARS. Dealing with HCID-patients can become a major challenge for hospitals and their employees in the future. In addition to the medical aspects, acknowledging the risk perception of health care workers (HCWs) plays a critical role in addressing HCID-situations, as a high perception of contagion risk is associated with a decreasing willingness to work. Therefore, our goal was to explore, what kinds of risks HCWs perceive in dealing with HCID-patients and which role fear and insecurities play in this regard.

We applied a social-cognitive research approach focussing on the interaction of subjective risk perception and other factors as well as their influence on behaviour. Referring to Paton (2003) we expected self-efficacy and outcome expectancies to be important factors for behavioural intentions. We extended the theoretical model further by integrating team-efficacy (based on Sharma & Sharma, 2016). Our aim was to test the interactions of these factors as their relation is not empirically clarified so far.

We conducted a quantitative survey in two German hospitals (N=57) in 2018. To test our theoretical model, we used the SPSS macro PROCESS by Hayes (2017). Regarding the measurement of risk perception, we developed a sensitive, scenario-based measuring tool. A scenario helps to assist in disclosing sensitive issues and therefore to raise HCWs awareness for HCID-situations, as for now they are still hypothetical hazards in Germany.

Our outcome model highlights how risk perception, self-efficacy, team-efficacy and outcome expectancies are connected and influence behavioural intentions regarding potential HCID-situations in Germany. In line with our hypothesis, team-efficacy affects self-efficacy and is an additional important factor for HCID-situations. Furthermore, risk perception seems to have merely an indirect effect on behavioural intentions, which is mediated through outcome expectancies.

Our presentation will contain three steps. At first, we are going to give a short introduction to HCID-situations and the concept of risk perception. In the second step we present our methodological approach and in the third step we are going to illustrate our findings.

Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis. A Regression-Based Approach. Second Edition. Guilford Press

Paton, D. (2003). Disaster preparedness: A social‐cognitive perspective. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 12(3), 210–216.

Sharma, S., & Sharma, S. K. (2016). Team Resilience: Scale Development and Validation. Vision: the Journal of Business Perspective, 20(1), 37–53.

Online media has gained a pivotal role in communicating risks for health to the public. Internet has become the number one information channel where people engage in risk information seeking. Easy access to and efficient online sharing of information improved people’s awareness of hazards and facilitated their participation in managing risk. In case of new emerging risks, people can use media narration to make sense of complex issues, especially when direct experience is lacking. On the other hand, these events are capable of catalysing public opinion for long periods, affecting risk perception and choices in everyday life. Therefore, it is fundamental to understand how media contribute to cover and represent such risks.

It is the case of perfluoroalkylated substances (PFASs) contamination of drinking water that has occurred since 2013 in the Veneto Region (northern Italy), mainly due to the emissions of a chemical plant located in the area. Despite their industrial success in many fields (e.g. non-stick cookware, cleaning products, fabrics and clothing), PFASs are highly persistent in the environment and bioaccumulative, thus suspected of human toxicity. For these reasons, PFASs are an emerging risk and European and national health authorities are working to risk exposure assessment.

This study explored how Italian online media covered the PFASs contamination: text mining techniques were performed to identify (i) which online information sources mainly talked about the case and received major engagement, (ii) which figures were mainly involved in the case communication and (iii) which issues related to PFAS contamination the media preferably stressed. Online content related to the case was retrieved through web monitoring activity run between March 2017 and February 2018 (N=345). Explorative statistical analyses provided information about the main sources and figures involved. Data were further analysed by means of the Reinert method implemented in the IRaMuTeQ software, which allow identifying clusters of words referring to classes of meaning representing the main debated issues related to PFASs. The presence of these clusters among sources were thus observed (R software).

Results showed that mainly local media talked about the contamination and interest was higher after communication by environmental associations rather than health authorities’ ones. In terms of content, both local media and specialized sources helped sustain the local community concerns and request for institutional support. Results offer interesting considerations in terms of communication of chemical risk at early stage and how the online digital environment contributed to depict the event.

Over the course of just a few years, shrimp farming has become a major aquaculture production system in coastal areas of several developing countries across the globe. However, farmers are facing a variety of risks related to disease, market, and climate, which influence risk management strategies and adoption of new technologies. This paper looks at three practices related to pond management: (1) water quality management to ensure a good environment for shrimp growth; (2) adequate feed input; and (3) disease control practices in order to mitigate the risk of disease outbreak in the pond.

We investigated adoption of these three practices in smallholder shrimp farms (N = 251) in the Mekong Delta, by exploring how and whether membership into a producer’s cluster influences access to knowledge and perception of risk in the adoption process. The results show that, after controlling for farm characteristics, farm clustering has a positive relationship with the adoption of water quality management, feed inputs, and disease control practices. Results also indicate that increasing interaction frequency with public sector and private sector’s actors, as well as the perceived degree of market risk, positively influences the adoption of the three pond management practices under study. Mediation analyses show that being a member of a farmer cluster influences adoption of farming practices via two underlying processes: frequency of interaction with public and private sector’s actors, and perception of market risk, both of which ultimately promote the adoption of practices.

We conclude that clustering is a promising avenue for fostering interactions between farmers and key supporting actors in aquaculture, and impacts both the formation of specific aqua-related risk perceptions and subsequent practice adoption. As such, clusters – by fostering linkages and facilitating interactions between different knowledge sources – can promote adoption of practices towards sustainable intensification. However, to more effectively deploy a cluster approach a key policy and practice implication is to take into consideration local idiosyncrasies defined by their social interactions, risk perception and spatial dimensions in order to better facilitate local linkages between farms (horizontal coordination) and a better integration with the value chain (vertical coordination). Some questions are still unanswered, such as how trust in different network partners may play a role in the formation of risk perceptions, and the subsequent adoption of risk management practices. These will be discussed on the basis of follow-up research that is currently being conducted.

The transition to sustainable transport system is key to reduce the current level of energy use and to mitigate climate change. The introduction and widespread adoption of new vehicle technologies and services is seen as one of the most promising transport mitigation options. However, unlocking their emission reduction potential requires policies and strategies that take preferences, attitudes and perceptions of emerging technology into account. Although an increasing number of studies analyzed the acceptance of specific new vehicle technologies, psychological factors influencing their corresponding risk and benefits perceptions remain unclear.

To address this issue, I use data from a representative online survey conducted in the German cities Berlin and Hamburg in 2017 (n = 822). In this study respondents were asked a wide range of questions related to upcoming transportation services and technologies. Here, in my analysis I focus on measures related to respondents’ self-reported general risk-taking propensity, risk and benefit assessments and affective evaluation of new transport mode options as well as their knowledge about these technologies.

Overall, risk judgments for driverless vehicles were most negative among all technologies. The results show significant differences regarding the familiarity with new transport technologies. While the vast majority reported having at least heard about electric cars (e-cars), almost the half of the sample indicated to have no knowledge about autonomous vehicles. Correspondingly, the perceived risks of autonomous vehicles outweigh their benefits, whereas risk-benefit responses for e-cars showed an inverse pattern. Knowledge about new transport modes was positively correlated with the perception that the technologies benefits outweigh its risks. To assess whether the impact of knowledge on risk perception was influenced by age, the general risk-taking propensity and affective evaluation of technologies an ordered logistic regression was performed. After controlling for these factors there was no relation between familiarity and risks perception. Instead, affective appraisal was the largest predictor of perceived risk and benefits across all transport innovations.

The findings suggest demographics, knowledge and the general risk-taking propensity of people seem to be less important for risk and benefit assessments than affective reactions. Affective appraisals of emergent technologies, in turn, are mainly determined by the self-reported innovativeness of people. Thus, the influence of new information on risk perception of new transport technologies may be minimal if receivers hold strong prior negative appraisals. Further studies could help in identifying techniques for framing information to guide risk communication and enhance its effectiveness.

A radical step change in the production and consumption of materials and products is needed as part of the transition towards a more sustainable, low-carbon society. However, little attempt has been made to assess consumer acceptance and adoption of such changes on a larger scale.

This presentation reports findings that address this gap, by exploring the social acceptability of a range of different low resource and carbon strategies of consumption. In particular we will identify the perceived risks and benefits that might prove barriers or enablers of change using qualitative and quantitative research tools. In addition to mapping public perceptions and concerns for drastic low carbon strategies, we also examine the role of social norms trust and moral considerations in driving support, adoption and concerns of these future strategies.

After holding expert interviews to identify the consumption patterns experts anticipate to be relevant in realizing a low carbon society, we designed scenarios. Scenarios described a world in which low material strategies, were the norm by which people lived their lives accordingly. These scenarios were then discussed in a series of two-day workshops using qualitative deliberative and narrative techniques.

As a next step, an online survey was designed to test results of the qualitative workshops in a wider, nationally representative UK sample (n=1500). Four low materials scenarios were embedded as short animated clips presenting the complex content as an immersive vision of the future. Respondents indicated their willingness to embrace each vison of low materials futures, while also stating perceived benefits and concerns about each strategy. Furthermore, the survey measured respondents’ perceived social norms surrounding low carbon futures to identify how individual support is determined by social considerations.

Results show that some strategies (such as reduced packaging), were perceived very positively while others (such as product-service systems), proved much more controversial. Personal preferences for different low-carbon strategies were found to be driven by concerns about trust, affordability, convenience, expectations about social support and moral considerations. Despite widespread concerns about some scenarios the analysis also identified that most respondents felt the need for a drastic shift towards a more environmentally-sustainable society, and that most people are generally willing to change their lifestyles and practices to some degree.

Gasification technologies hold promise as a key technology to support the transition from a linear to circular carbon economy. Using gasification, diverse primary and secondary carbon resources can be used as a chemical raw material. While public acceptance is often integral to the successful implementation of innovative technologies, currently little is known about public perceptions of gasification.

An online survey-based study was implemented in 2018 to provide first insight into lay perceptions of gasification technologies and their determinants. Research by Anderson et al. (2014,2016) into the ‘nasty effect’ shows that the incivility of social commentary accompanying information about innovative technology can yield a polarizing effect, leading to heightened perceptions of risk. Hence, the study also investigated how manipulations of (a) type of gasification discussed (waste vs. coal) and (b) nature of associated social-media commentary (civil/friendly vs. uncivil/unfriendly), might affect perceptions.

Participants (N = 101) were shown either a short informational video about coal or waste gasification before responding to questions designed to assess their opinions of the technology (e.g. attitudes; beliefs about risks and benefits; trust in developers). We also manipulated whether participants saw fictitious ‘civil’ or ‘uncivil’ social-media commentary while viewing the video.

Overall, participants showed intentions to support the use of gasification, exhibited mildly positive attitudes and general agreement about its benefits and trust in the technological aptitude of developers. However, they were ambivalent about their abilities to influence decision-making and the moral and social norms relating to support for gasification.

While both informational videos were evaluated favourably, the coal gasification video was found to be significantly less trustworthy (p = .009). Comparative analysis revealed that participants in the uncivil conditions were significantly more likely to disagree that they had control over decision making regarding gasification (p = .014) and marginally more likely to disagree that there was social support for gasification (p = .060). General risk perceptions did not differ.

Overall, the findings pointed to tentative support for gasification as a technology option. While the anticipated ‘nasty effect’ was not observed, there was evidence that perceptions of the technology were affected by the civility of the social-media commentary associated with the videos. The findings have implications for strategies of public communication and engagement pertaining to gasification.

A larger follow-up study is currently being conducted on a representative sample of the UK population. The results of this follow-up study will also be discussed within the presentation.

The Paris Agreement makes the assumption that in order to achieve a 2oC scenario it will be necessary to deploy negative emission technologies (NETs) or carbon dioxide removal techniques (CDRs). Research has grown rapidly in the exploration of new technologies and strategies to help reduce carbon dioxide and remove it from the atmosphere to limit the impacts of climate change. One way of doing this is through enhanced weathering in which silicate minerals (e.g. basalt) could be mined, crushed and spread on land. The biological interaction with soils and plants helps to transform carbon into carbonates which ultimately get washed into rivers and into the ocean, locking away the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a long-term scale. With field trials already underway to test how effective this strategy could be, there are a range of possible risks that need exploring such as impacts on the marine environment.

As well as examining the potential of enhanced weathering it is vital to understand how acceptable society would find enhanced weathering if it was adopted as a way to help reduce climate change. We conducted a cross-national survey in the UK, US and Australia and will present initial findings on what influences acceptability of enhanced weathering. Support for research and deployment was measured with conditions attached by people on their choice of whether enhanced weathering should be carried out as well as their levels of concern around climate change. By identifying how people assess the possible risks and benefits of enhanced weathering and how it relates to their attitudes towards climate change, we can establish how this strategy is understood and how acceptable carbon dioxide removal may be as part of the solution to minimise climate change.

The risk posed by increasing frequency of hot days and heatwaves, and the ability of technological or other interventions to protect against that risk, is vital to understand in the context of designing climate policy. In addition to health impacts of extreme weather, which have been much studied, and nascent literature attempts to uncover causal links from high temperature events to other outcomes important for economic and social wellbeing. The ability and willingness of people to go to work is central to most economic and social outcomes. Using data from the large-scale India Human Development Survey (IHDS-II), with the scheduling in advance of interviews ensuring quasi-random assignment of temperature treatment to respondent, we provide the first large-sample evidence of the impact of short-term high temperatures on labor supply and how that impact depends upon individual living conditions. The effects are substantial and robust. Other things equal a hot day (one in which maximum daytime temperature exceeds 37.7 °C (100 °F) reduces ability to work by about 11%. The impact is strongest on older workers and varies by type of work, but there is little difference between males and females. Access to electricity in the home has important protective effects, but only once the quality of that electricity passes a particular threshold. Installation of cooling technology in the home mitigates around a quarter of the effect. The adequacy and quality of water supply to a home also has important mitigative effects. Keywords: Climate risk -risk mitiagtion - heatwaves - labor supply - climate impacts

In many ways, South Africa’s commercial grain farmers resemble their counterparts in higher-income countries (e.g., North America, Europe, Australia). Their farming enterprises are large, modern and highly mechanized, and they tend to be relatively well educated, with good access to institutional, informational and financial resources. But they are less buffered against the risks of the semi-arid and highly variable climate in which they farm. Agriculture subsidies were dismantled at the end of apartheid (in 1994) and these farmers generally lack access to irrigation water. For these and other reasons, some are progressively adopting practices associated with Conservation Agriculture, a key example of climate-smart agriculture and sustainable intensification. This intersection of high theoretical adaptive capacity, climatic vulnerability and ongoing changes in farming practice provides a unique opportunity to understand the autonomous private actor as an agent of transformation. Here, I use a mixed-methods analysis–mental models interviews and a national survey–to reconceptualize farmers’ decision-making from the ground up, finding that they proactively manage a variety of uncertain, long-term risks. Incremental experimentation drives small but continuous changes in personal, business and agricultural behaviors that result in transformations over time. However, competing objectives, pervasive uncertainty, and naturalistic decision-making techniques combine to make this process messier and less economically rational than typically portrayed in the literature. And the resulting transformations are not necessary aligned with broader societal objectives in South Africa’s daunting policymaking environment.

Global warming is one of the world’s most pressing problems. The public play an important role in global emissions reductions through energy use, consumer behaviour, social norms, and support for climate and energy policies. The present study focusses on religious members of the public, and in particular a Catholic public, to explore the role Catholics play in global warming engagement. Data for this analysis comes from a nationally representative panel survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. The survey utilized GfK’s Knowledge Panel, an online panel of members drawn using probability sampling methods. Data collection took place between late September and mid-October 2015, following the release of Laudato Si’, the Pope’s visit to the US and subsequent media coverage of both Laudato Si’ and his visit. From a total sample of 1330 Americans, the following analysis is based on a sample of 280 who self-identified as Catholic. Results from two regression models, investigating predictors of Catholic global warming risk perception and policy support, revealed that affect and emotion play a central role in whether American Catholics perceive global warming as a risk issue and how likely they are to support policies designed to mitigate the threat. As such, these findings add further evidence to the “risk as feelings” paradigm, which proposes that people are often reliant on affect and emotion when making judgements and decisions about risk. Moreover, the discrete emotions of worry and hope in particular were important predictors of Catholic global risk perception and policy support. Worry, especially, appears to be key being the single strongest predictor in both Catholic regression models. Values and trust were also important predictors with those who regarded global warming as a moral issue being more likely to perceive it as a risk and support policies. Catholics who trusted Pope Francis as a source of information on global warming were also more likely to perceive it as a risk and support policies. These results will be discussed and opportunities for Catholic global warming communication will also be considered.

In recent decades, flood events have been increasing globally. A large proportion of the affected population in an emergency event are children. Understanding children’s perception is a key component of building community resilience for disasters. The aim of this research is to give insights into how flood experience shapes children’s perception of flood risk and preparedness. The study location of this research is Golcuk, in the Kocaeli region of Turkey which is exposed to many flooding events during the year mostly due to the combined effects of heavy rainfalls, rapid urbanizations and poor drainage systems.

A flash flood in Golcuk on 27th May 2018 damaged 514 houses and 133 workplaces, causing at least US$ 235,000 of economic damage. Five government schools in Golcuk were sampled; the age range of the participating children was between 11 and 13 years old (n=425). A mixed methods survey was used to determine pre-flood and post-flood risk perceptions and preparedness, with questionnaires and interviews, augmented by the PRISM (Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measurement) methodology.

The findings show statistically significant differences in the perceived importance of preparedness (Z=32.9, p < .000, N=425) and no significant difference in flood risk perception (Z=41.2, p< .262, N=425) before and after the 2018 flood event. Gender is not a major factor in children’s perception of flood risk and preparedness. Research results regarding angles of PRISM indicate that children who place their results along the diagonal axis on PRISM are more optimistic than those who placed their result near the X and Y axis of the PRISM. The importance of perceived flood preparedness does not correspond to the actual flood preparedness, as more than half of the participants did not take any flood preparedness actions even after the 2018 flood event. The flood risk perception of the surveyed children and their risk awareness level does not match the actual flood risk in their home area, as the majority of the participants live in a flood-designated area.

The findings are important because Turkey is expecting increased catastrophic flood events in the near future due to the effects of climate change, like many other nations. The findings of this study will help the emergency planning and risk management organisations to develop more effective preparedness strategies for flood events, highlighting the importance of including the perspectives of children.

Abstract

Interdependencies are major determinants of the vulnerabilities and risks encountered by large infrastructure systems, and can have significant implications for post-disaster recovery. In the aftermath of a disastrous event, an infrastructure system may be subject to numerous disturbances originating from other interdependent infrastructures. Such disturbances can result in a series of system failures that can have tremendous impacts on the well-being of the community. This paper suggests that improving infrastructure resilience after a disaster should extend far beyond the repair and restoration of a system; it should involve the understanding of the overall behaviour of interdependent infrastructures, as well as the inherent vulnerabilities induced by their interrelationships. The main concern during recovery, should not only be in assessing the performance of interdependent large network systems, but also in finding ways to prevent existing damage from escalating and resulting in additional damages, which could potentially hinder the recovery effort. These assumptions were those of an exploratory study performed in Queensland Australia after the 2011 floods. The study included a series of unstructured and semi-structured interviews, as well as investigations of floods related case studies. The study revealed that large interdependent infrastructure systems tend to fail mostly due to physical and cyber disruptions induced by the lack of resources transferability, as well as the lack of infrastructures availability and reliability. The theoretical framework developed in this research can serve as practical policy-based tool for organisations involved in the post-disaster recovery of critical infrastructure systems such as water, energy, transport and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

It has been increasingly suggested that in order to meet ambitious climate change targets, there will be a need to remove previously-emitted CO2 from the atmosphere using Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs). However, there is still relatively little work on public perceptions of NETs, particularly regarding novel proposals such as Direct Air Capture and Enhanced Rock Weathering. There is increasing recognition that public acceptability is crucial for technology development, and that we should attempt to involve members of the public in constructive dialogue at the earliest possible stage through ‘upstream engagement’. Controversies over fracking and genetic modification have demonstrated that failure to understand public attitudes can result in significant problems further down the line. Research has also shown that non-experts can be effective at identifying cross-cutting issues which experts sometimes miss, and can also help us to learn why people form particular attitudes, so that we can work towards generalisable theories of how people respond to novel technology proposals.

This poster will present the results from a large study into risk perceptions of three major NET proposals: Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), Direct Air Capture, and Enhanced Rock Weathering. Our study has comprised deliberative focus groups with members of the public in 6 locations in the UK and United States Midwest. Our participants learnt about NETs over a period of 6 hours, giving them time to carefully formulate and reformulate their ideas in conversation with others; this depth of discussion is particularly important for novel technologies which people aren’t familiar with. We will present the results from our thematic analysis of this data, to reveal areas where publics perceive the greatest risks and benefits of each proposal, and their attitudes to the concept of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Comparative work examining public attitudes across different national contexts is quite rare, therefore we also hope to understand important similarities and differences between people’s responses in different national contexts. We aim to use these results to inform the early development of novel NET techniques, so that innovation may be carried out in an effective and ethical way.

Every day people expose themselves to various risks. The level of risk varies depending on the general risk and individual behavior. Accordingly, risk exposure in everyday life can be minimized by reducing risk behavior. One possibility to reduce risk behavior is to increase the attention to one's own person and the present moment, widely labelled as mindfulness. Mindfulness is the conscious and distant perception of one's feelings and thoughts. Previous research on risk behavior and mindfulness indicated that increased mindfulness is associated with resistance to representativity distortions such as the gambler´s fallacy, sunk-cost-bias effect and the near-miss effect. It also inhibits gambling behavior and profitable decision making. The current study investigated whether these measurable effects of mindfulness on risk-related behavior are also perceived by the affected individual. In an experimental between-subjects study participants (N = 58) received either a mindfulness or a mindwandering manipulation before playing the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) as a measure for risk-taking. Additionally, participants judged their risk behavior after the task. Regarding the BART participants showed significantly less risk behavior in the mindfulness group compared to the mindwandering group. However, groups did not differ in their subjective assessment, rating, or comparison of their performance in the task. This comes with some speculation, but results might indicate, that a state of mindfulness increases people’s awareness of potential threats and, accordingly, leads to cautious behavior. However, people seem neither to be aware of the chances of their perception nor of the resulting effect. Future research should explore the psychological mechanisms that carry the effect of mindfulness on risk behavior.

Building resilience towards the impacts of a changing climate is rising up the political agenda in the UK and many other nations. While many aspects of climate risk perception are now well understood, much of the past research has focused on understanding support for mitigation actions and policy. There is far less evidence on how citizens might view climate risk adaptation and resilience, and no coherent theoretical account of how these are related to climate risk perceptions. Our research project (RESIL-RISK) will address this knowledge gap by examining public perceptions of national climate impacts, risks and support for climate change strategies in the British public while also testing theoretically driven communication strategies.

The existing adaptation literature raises concerns and provides theoretical arguments for the notion that adaptation efforts might reduce motivation to mitigate climate change - called mitigation deterrence (Pielke et al, 2007). Despite this, some evidence suggests that information about adaptation might actually increase the salience of climate change and therefore increase mitigation support (Carrico et al, 2015).

Furthermore there has been mixed evidence on another prominent idea in the adaptation literature, concerning the role of psychological distance (Brügger, Morton, Dessai, 2015). Significant climate change risks are typically attributed to distant places, or thought to affect other people, or to occur far in the future. In terms of risk communication, important implications arise from this, particularly whether climate risks and their proposed solutions are framed as proximate/local or national/distant.

To address these gaps in the literature we will work closely with the UK Met Office, to conduct an online study (approx. n= 3000) to improve our theoretical understanding of links between climate risk perceptions and support for climate change adaptation options. Using an additional six demographically matched over-samples (n= 250 each) we will also experimentally test the effects of climate messages on personal intentions and policy support. The climate messages will manipulate proximity of climate change impacts (national vs. local vs. both) and priority of climate actions (adaptation vs. adaption alongside mitigation).

The findings will contribute towards the theoretical discussions around climate adaption and broaden our understanding of how risk communication can be delivered as a climate service, with a particular focus upon supporting future UK Climate Risk Assessments.

Public acceptability will play a key role in shaping if and where energy storage technologies can be deployed. Research in other fields suggests energy infrastructure can raise significant social and ethical concerns among citizens, however no study has empirically examined public perceptions across a broad range of storage technologies available. We address this gap by presenting qualitative findings from four deliberative workshops held with members of the British public (n=44). We show that citizens underestimate the challenge of growing volumes of inflexible low-carbon electricity generation, and respond to storage technologies through reference to commonly perceived risks and benefits. When participants discussed how storage might be funded and managed, additional evaluative criteria emerged centred around fairness, independence and convenience. Our findings suggest that perceptions of storage technologies tend to be ambivalent, and that acceptance is likely to be contingent on whether technologies can be managed to meet societal desires and mitigate concerns.

Korea is one of the countries with a very high college entrance rate all over the world and a highly competitive entrance examination. Therefore, if there is a problem in the university system, it leads to a socially fatal loss. And now, Korean university finance faces a moment of financial crisis . Unlike in the US and Europe, Korea has more than 80% of the total number of universities in private universities. Nevertheless, due to the aftermath of the US financial crisis in 2008, all Korean universities' tuition fees have been legally frozen for more than 10 years. The decline in the number of university admissions due to the freezing of tuition fees and the cliffs of the population is the biggest negative factor in university finance. Thus, most private universities have tried to get government funding projects.

In this study, we plan to conduct empirical analysis using panel data from all universities in Korea to find solutions to the above problems. By using the data from the university information dissemination website announced in the past five years, we conducted a regression analysis on the financial situation, educational conditions and university achievement of each university, we try to comprehensively evaluate the impact of the government supportrf project on the financial sector in university. This is expected to play an important role in establishing a direction for new university education policy.

Autonomous driving have been fiction for a long time. But in the last years intense research have made according technology increasingly feasible. On the one hand, autonomous driving is proclaimed safe. On the other hand, there are news of accidents due to malfunctional car equipment. [BS1] However, from a psychological perspective autonomous driving require people to transfer control and autonomy to the car. We assumed, that for reasons of self-worth people perceive themselves as more traffic-savvy as a self-driving car. Therefore, we hypothesized that people are willing to take more risk while driving themselves compared to been driven by an autonomous car. In a within-subjects design study (N = 45) driving conditions (classic vs. autonomous) were manipulated via video footage displayed on a screen in front of car, in which participants were seated. Willingness for risk taking was measured via a standardized measure of willingness for risky driving (Vienna Testing System), which was displayed on the screen as well. To stop the displayed risky traffic scene participants either hit the break (classic condition) or pressed a button (autonomous condition). In contradiction to our hypothesis, participants showed longer reaction times (i.e. more willingness for risk taking) in the autonomous condition compared to the classic condition. It seems like participants had more trust in the competence of an autonomous car. However, potential mediating mechanisms remain speculative and should explored in future studies.

Recently, among air pollution, particulate matters are emerging as serious social problems, and policies about them are increasing. It is after 2013 that the issue of particulate matter has become a social problem in Korean society. Particulate matter has become an important issue not only for the individual but also for the social point of view because it affects the daily life of individual. The solution of particulate matter requires personal cooperation and participation about the policy about it. This study focuses on analyzing the role of health variables in individual response to micro dust. This study assumes that good health has a negative effect on response behaviors However, in this study, it is noted that the influence of such health is also related with other variables. This study focuses on analyzing the role of risk perception, risk communication, resource and health in doing something toward particulate matter.

As particulate matter among air pollution becomes a global issue, research in natural science has been increasing. The particulate matter problem is not merely a technical problem, but a social problem. Therefore, the attitudes which the members in the society hold are very important for the particulate matter. The purpose of this study is to analyze which variables influence the subjective health related to particulate matter.

For this work, the subjective health level that individuals evaluate is set as a dependent variable. The traditional risk perception variable, resource variable, and demographic variable are set as independent variables. This study is meaningful to find out which factors contribute to the perceived level of health.

It is true that the acceptance of nuclear power has been lowered due to the spread of negative attitude nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. However, this acceptability varies from country to country and from person to person. In this study, we accept the assumption that the attitude toward nuclear energy is not fixed and fluid, and we pay attention to conditional acceptability. Conditional acceptance is the degree to which an existing attitude changes according to certain conditions. This study analyzed the conditional acceptance of nuclear energy in terms of three conditions: 1) lower perceived risk, 2) increased benefits, and 3) higher procedural fairness. In addition, we analyzed the causal variables influencing the change of conditional acceptance.

Particulate matter is a social disaster and has a great influence on people's everyday life. As the problem of particulate matter becomes serious as a social disaster, the cause of this problem is actively discussed. In the event of a socially bad case, a controversy arises about the responsibility for this, which is a matter of blame attribution. The purpose of this study is to systematically analyze the role and impact of blame attribution in the particulate matter problem.

Based on survey data, this study was to analyze the causes of the blame attribution and to analyze the effect of blame attribution on the behaviors on the particulate matter. Through this analysis, we try to clarify the meaning of the social aspect of the blame attribution.

As the air pollution has become the risk factors, particulate matter is becoming a big social issue in Korea. Since particulate matters have greatly influenced the lives of individuals, great efforts have been made to overcome particulate matters at a personal level, such as using and buying air purifier sales. However, there are still individuals who do not perceive particulate matter as dangerous. Corresponding behavior level depends on the degree of recognizing the risk of particulate matter. A factor of perceived risk consisted of perceived risk, perceived benefit, knowledge, trust, and emotion.

Our study aims to examine the power of pollical factor in explaining the perception of particulate matter. For this work, we set up, as independent variables, the five factors in psychometric paradigm and two variables in political factors, which consists of ideology and support for Moon-jaein government.

Recently, Korea has faced the energy transition. In particular,, the government is showing strong commitment to energy transition, in particular, stressing on de-nuclear energy policy. Regarding this, the Korean government made public debate about the construction of Shin Gori No. 5 and 6 and tried to establish the 3rd Energy Basic Plan and the Renewable Energy 3020 Plan. Although government efforts are important for energy transition, public interest and participation are also important. In fact, if there will be major changes in energy transition, this will affect electricity charges and taxes which will influence all of people.

This study analyzed how three main factors---political economy factors, value and energy preference--influence the acceptance of electricity charge and tax policy. First, political economic factors consisted of household income, electricity charge burden, ideology, social class, and the support for present government. Next, the individual value factor included optimism on technology and environmentalism. Finally, we can suggest a preference factor for renewable energy which consisted of support for de-nuclear policy and for renewable energy, and energy security. Electricity charges and tax policies as dependent variables are divided into demand control, energy tax policy, differentiation of home and industrial price rates, support for low-income subsidy, strengthening progressive taxes for electricity. Our study will highlight the attitude toward energy price policy.

On March 11, 2011, after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, the world became aware of the danger of nuclear power. Also, the problems of climate change becomes serious problem today. As a result, demand and expectations for solar energy among renewable energy sources are rising in the world . Solar energy has less problems with air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions than other renewable energy sources. Another advantage is that energy can be supplied more safely than nuclear power. For this reason, solar energy is considered as renewable energy expected in the future. However, there is little research on public acceptance of solar energy. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the role of psychological paradigm and political variables on solar energy acceptability.

On this study, we can provide the following theoretical and practical implications. First, we can explore the role of psychometric paradigm on solar energy acceptability. Second, we can explore the role of the political ideology and Moon Jae-In government support about solar energy acceptance. Thus, this study can suggest the new direction of solar energy policy.

After the high concentration of nervous system toxic substances in China's smog became problem in 2013, the issue of particular matter from China has begun to emerge in Korea. As a result, people's interest in particulate matter is increasing. However, the risk perception of particulate matter varies from person to person. Some perceive that particulate matter is very dangerous to the human body, while others perceive less of the risk of particulate matter. The purpose of this study is to explore what makes these perceptual differences.

First, we can analyze the effect of demographic characteristics on risk perception of particulate matter. Second, the impact of human vulnerability on perceived risk can be verified. Third, the effects of perceived benefits, trust, emotion, and knowledge, which are elements of psychometric paradigm for particulate matter, can be grasped.

The consumption of pharmaceuticals by people is increasing every day in European countries and could soon become a dangerous source of pollution of river water. To try to alleviate this threat, scientists are currently working on technological developments. Simultaneously to these developments, research is being carried out from the social sciences on how people perceive this risk. In this research, it is a question of studying the perception of the risk that the laymen have on the contamination of the fecal waters that produce the excretion of the drugs in centers for the elderly. For this purpose, 52 Spaniards and 38 Portuguese were interviewed, all users or family members of these establishments. In order to reach the objective, the participants completed a questionnaire in which they contemplated the level of information available regarding the effects derived from the contamination of water by the excretion of drugs in general and the magnitude of the risk to health and the environment that this contamination entailed. In addition, they answered to the perception of four of the drugs - aspirin, strepsils, phosphamide, and lercanidipine - which are widely used in these centers. The first analyses show that 67.3% of Spaniards and 78.3% of Portuguese say they have no general information about the water pollution caused by medications consumed by people. When analyzing the perceived risk in both groups, it is observed that the Spanish perceive significantly greater magnitude of risk for the environment and for health than the Portuguese. In addition, when the risks on the appearance of multi-resistant bacteria in water, the quality of domestic water and agriculture are specified, it is observed that once again the Spaniards score significantly higher than the Portuguese. Regarding the perception of the four specific drugs, it should be pointed out that despite certain differences between the participants from the two countries, it stands out how in both cases the need for greater knowledge about this risk is expressed. The results of this work highlight the novelty of this phenomenon for lay people and users. In spite of the fact that the Spanish participants generally achieve higher scores than the Portuguese, these differences do not seem relevant when it comes to planning communication campaigns about this danger, since the scores of both groups in all the variables are very extreme, as the lack of knowledge is very high.

The determination of evidence for food safety regulations is an important task as the resulting regulations influence consumer welfare, trade or food production. Risk assessors have a key role in this process. Their assessment is a basic decision tool and aims to provide all relevant knowledge related to the risk under consideration. This tool is questioned in debates on the framing of risk assessments, the claiming of objectivity and independence, or the responsibility for the inclusion of societal evidence. It is criticized that systematic approaches for the inclusion or a clear definition of the role of societal evidence in European risk analysis for food safety are missing. The aims of this study are to examine which societal factors are actually considered in risk analysis in general and which of them are relevant in the stage of risk assessment. Factors are defined as consequences of the absence of food safety which are considered in conception, regulation and application of risk analysis related to food safety.

A multiple qualitative case study design was chosen as research method, using the cases of microbiological hazards and pesticide residues. First, a document analysis was conducted to identify relevant factors in the practice of risk analysis because it is not clearly distinguishable which stage of risk analysis is responsible for which factor. Second, we conduct expert interviews with risk assessors on different levels. Data is analyzed in qualitative content analysis.

Results of the document analysis provide a systematic overview for relevant factors in food safety in the European risk analysis process. Multiple factors (e.g. public acceptance) in 6 dimensions (e.g. consumer impact) are identified and assigned to the related actors in the evidence determination process (consumers, food system, context). Results of expert interviews specify which of the societal factors are relevant in risk assessment and uncover the circumstances under which they are considered (active or passive interactions with the actors).

The study shows that evidence for food safety is constructed in an actors network, where actors influence and are influenced by each other. This network shapes which and how societal factors become relevant in risk assessment. The study contributes to the clarification on the role of societal factors in European food safety regulations. It contributes to discussions on the framing of risk assessments, on the reflection of the role of societal factors, or the influence of external actors on the risk assessment process.

The oil and gas sector is one of the most dangerous and stringent workplaces, due to the hazardousness of materials involved as well as the critical tasks that workers have to perform. Cranes are widely used in this sector for several activities. Given that a wrong load lifting or handling could bring to severe accidental scenarios, often are due to a limited visibility of working area, safety of these operations becomes of paramount importance. The use of safety devices, that provide an augmented vision to the crane-operator, is essential to avoid potential accidents, moreover risk analysis could benefit from the acquisition of real time information about the process. This work aims to extrapolate and adapt dynamic risk assessment concepts into the context of crane-related operations for a typical oil and gas industry, by means of the support of safety devices. To achieve this objective, a set of risk indicators, reporting continuous information about the operations that are carried out, will be defined; successively, a technique of aggregation of these indicators will also be applied with the aim to update the frequency of critical events by a proper Risk Metric Reduction Factor that account for the effect of the use of safety barriers.

The definitions and risk models used in the professional and scientific fields are numerous. These definitions can be expressed with one or more variables, such as consequences, probability, uncertainty, and others. In turn, the description of these variables can be adapted to the characteristics of the field of study as well as to the novel aspects of risk interest. In the case of industrial safety, a distinction can be made between safety related to occupational accidents and safety related to major accidents. Both types of accidents can be interrelated and can be caused by both traditional risks and emerging risks.

In all cases, risk management must be addressed. There are numerous management frameworks linked to safety, which can be classified by distinguishing between occupational accident and major accident. There are also frameworks for emerging risk management, however, very recent or even still in the development and maturation phase. Possibly, for this reason, the number of scientific publications that collect the concepts as “emerging risk” or “management & emerging risk”, are still scarce.

In any case, for both traditional and emerging risks, uncertainty is one of the main variables of interest for industrial safety, gaining even more interest when dealing with emerging risk management from dynamic approaches. In this way, the main objective of this paper is to analyze uncertainty management as well as the main characteristic of the emerging risk of accidents in industrial processes.

To achieve such objective, a methodology based on the review of scientific literature combined with the revision of international standards on risk management has been developed. Based on the result of this review process, a qualitative approach has been proposed for the analysis of emergent risk based on a consequence/uncertainty risk matrix. This approach has been integrated into the general process of risk management, especially considering the importance of the monitoring process in all stages of the management process.

[Abstract] In order to realize the scientific measurement and evaluation of the risk factors of social stability in major events, this paper adopts the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) as the technical framework, taking the Shanghai Hongmei South Road elevated project and its surrounding shantytown demolition and reconstruction project as a case, to build a social stability risk assessment indicator system for major events. The system uses policy mechanism, environment and economy as the criteria indicators, including 8 program-level 1 indicators and 34 program-level 2 indicators. This paper first determines the weight coefficient of each indicator, and uses the compatibility index method to conduct consistency test, then counts the scoring data of stakeholders on the risk degree of each indicator of the project. Finally, the weighted calculation results that the overall social stability risk level is level III, moderate risk.

Due to the popularity and interest the public has in social media, local governments in China have chosen to explore the use of Sina microblogs (Sina) for information dissemination since 2011. Government generally define Sina as an innovative channel to inform citizens during crisis response and recovery. However while the local government is reluctant to interact with citizens on social media, the Sina users in China already actively engage themselves in free discussion, real time interaction and collective deliberation during crisis response. Furthermore, Chinese citizens employ Sina to assemble netizens’ opinions and mobilize issue-oriented social movement during emergency recovery. Local government in China find themselves facing a reality where their capability to address needs of those heavily impacted by critical crises is severely restricted without actively engaging citizens via social media platforms.

Herein we examine the use of Sina and assess its value for government disaster information communication and policy deliberation with an emphasis on public participation in recovery policy making. Our focus is Tianjin, China and the potential use of Sina to support government citizen interaction and participatory recovery policy making in Tianjin Explosion1 in 2015.

Employing social network analysis, we analyze the information dissemination and policy propagation process in crisis response and recovery of Tianjin Local government based on data crawled from the Sina Platform between August-December 2015. We investigate the interactions and mutual shaping process between local governments’ effort to limit Sina for pure information dissemination and citizens’ active use of Sina for public participation. It was through these interactions that the role of social media in disaster response and recovery is being shaped. Social media are also reshaping information dissemination and policy making in crisis response in China.

We find that Social media could potentially serve as a valuable data source for local government to make informed policy for emergency recovery. However, it is still challenging for local governments to collect, synthesize, analyze huge amount of social media data and incorporate citizens’ feedback in policy making in a real time manner. Suggestions for local government in China to harness social media data for efficient risk communication and policy making are provided. The important roles played by peripheral netizens in promoting citizen engagement in crisis response and recovery are discussed in the end.

1 Tianjin Explosion in 2015 is quoted as the biggest urban crisis involving heavy explosion caused by unknown chemical materials in China since 1949.

The first step of understanding the system of local risk management and its operation is to locate risk in social context, and the present study focuses on policy tools and their usage preference in risk management. As an exploratory study, this paper applied the analysis of grounded theory into textual big data to explore the three stages of governments’ risk management, that is, information gathering, standard setting and behavior modification or enforcement. It is found that policy tools of Chinese government are diverse and selective for risk management; there is a close relationship between policy tools and politics; politics-driven tools and their application play a leading role in risk management. The present study will help construct the picture of policy tools of Chinese government for risk management and their usage preference, which provides a better explanation for the political feature of Chinese government’s risk management.

There are seven conceptions in different disciplines studying on Risk Perception in China: risk perception（Fengxian Ganzhi）, risk cognition（Fengxian Renzhi），crisis awareness（Weiji Yishi）, risk awareness（Fengxian Yishi）, safety awareness（Anquan Yishi）, sense of security and Youhuan awareness, which mainly manifested and shaped narratives on risks during the past years since 1988. The review analyzed 41477 papers from five main disciplines(Science on Economy and Management, Psychology, Sociology, Information and Media) published from 1988 to 2016 based on the database from Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI).

The analysis is focusing on three aspects: (1) Publication tendency on seven different conceptions, related to their disciplines from 1988 to 2016; (2) Transdisciplinary usage of seven different conceptions; (3) Comparative study of the connotation of seven conceptions.

The results show that Youhuan awareness, the original conception of risk perception grounded in the Chinese culture, has been wildly adopted by the discipline like literature, history and philosophy; Risk perception and risk cognition have been imported by scholars since SARS(2003) in the discipline like economy and management, psychology, which became the dominant tendency in study of risk perception and are playing increasingly important role in scientific field and influence the practical world accordingly. Compared to the original culturally based conceptions like Youhuan awareness, Safety awareness and sense of security, the adoption of risk perception, a translated imported word, has significantly influenced the narrative of risks, which will shape the process of how chinese perceive the risks in the long run, with its buried value system from western world.

*Youhuan awareness，which means awareness of unexpected development, mindfulness of the difficulties ahead, or consciousness suffering

Modern societies are confronted with risks which originate in tightly coupled systems with various interdependencies and feedback loops, such as climate change and financial risks. These “systemic risks” challenge conventional risk analysis and management. The phrase “systemic risks” denotes risk phenomena which are exceedingly complex and interdependent. They are characterized by cascading effects, tipping points and non-linear developments. Furthermore, compared to their potential impacts, they often lack proportional public awareness and adequate policies. Consequentially, systemic risks demand cooperative management efforts of experts, corporate sector, civil society and regulators. Effective risk management needs to find a balance between efficiency and resilience, and the solutions devised should be fair to all people affected. The presentation gives an introduction to the concept of systemic risks and raises fundamental questions for governance of systemic risks.

We conceive global systemic risks and conventional risks as two contrasting subcategories of the general category risk. While modern societies know quite well how to deal with conventional risks, we have not yet been equally successful at identifying, managing and governing global systemic risks. We propose that combining the concepts of deep uncertainty, extended evolution, and normal accidents might be a useful step in this direction. Our global financial system exhibits global systemic risks, as evidenced by the current global financial crises. We interpret this crisis as a paradigmatic example of a normal accident of a tightly coupled complex system. Describing the emergence and development of the global financial system as such a tightly coupled complex system, we consider it instructive to look at its history from the perspective of extended evolution. Extended evolution acknowledges deep uncertainty, i.e. an open future that cannot be predicted by applying universal laws of historic progress. Nevertheless, it also holds that some features of social dynamics can – at least in principle – be comprehended and used for predicting things to come and preparing us for dealing with them, both preconditions for managing global systemic risks.

This presentation engages with ‘systemic risk’ as a heuristic for conceptualizing some potentials of hypothetical 'climate engineering' approaches - stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) - and both explores and critiques some parameters for more detailed future assessments. The intent of these parameters is to explore some benefits of comparing different kinds of climate engineering (CE) approaches against scenarios in which they are withheld (a risk vs. risk comparison); and to explore the value of benchmarking inquiries into CE risks with research already underway, particularly in the system of modeling and assessment activities coordinated by the production of IPCC Assessment Reports. Flaws associated with this proposed research framework are also pointed out: namely, 'risks' and 'benefits' of CE approaches are likely to be defined more by their technical characteristics than by more societal dimensions, and are likely to suffer from the appearance of realness despite existing only in abstractions and calculations. The presentation concludes by reflecting on the ‘systemic’ elements of SAI and BECCS as products of projection and imagination, questioning if disciplines of 'risk assessment' frame imaginary technologies in unhelpful ways, and echoes a call for governance processes that maintain a watch over the early economy of how the ‘risks’ of new issues are constructed.

In the presentation, we ask whether social inequality qualifies as a systemic risk, which is characterized by being 1) global in nature, 2) highly interconnected leading to complex causal structures, 3) non-linear in the cause-effect relationships, and 4) stochastic in the effect structure. We will show that social inequality is closely related to systemic risks in the context of the socio-ecological crisis and, therefore, might seem to be a systemic risk itself. However, we argue, that the suboptimal governance of resources leads to “first-level” risks (for instance insufficient access to safe housing, nutrition, sanitation, health care, education, income, etc.) that converge in structural social inequality and injustice. The perception of inequality and injustice and the resulting behaviour then modify patterns of consumption, voting and protest, as well as politics that affect the governance of resources and first level risks. We would like to discuss whether social inequality is rather a symptom of the socio-ecological crisis than a systemic risk itself.

Much of today's research on risk and training is based on traditional risk analysis - where the starting point is probability of possible events and not least the frequency of previously incidents. These are clearly important principles. However, unforeseen events occur.

In a globalized world, the requirements for interaction are sharpened, while events occur suddenly. The word 'interaction' is widely used in the education and training sector, not least in education, both in strategic plans and in subjects. However, the term is used differently, and it has been unclear which basic relational processes are the basis for the interaction to take place in practice. Confidence has traditionally been one of several important prerequisites for cooperation.

However, most studies on interaction have been focused on events and situations where the conditions have been safe and predictable - mostly due to defined goals, such as learning or management goals. Nevertheless, what happens to the basic processes of interaction if the conditions are unpredictable and involve a risk - where the situation does not go according to plan? This may be in dealing with dangerous situations such as terror acts, cyber attacks, accidents’ or climate change, but also when new and unplanned situations occur along the way during workday, class hours or with individuals.

How, then, can we create interaction so as to prevent unwanted consequences, or to gain new learning and practice by exploiting the potential of the spontaneous and unforeseen? What didactic skills are needed to handle this? In addition, does it matter what the word used in curricula, frameworks and other education or political, industrial or military strategic plans and doctrines; interaction, cooperation or collaboration- or just "working together"?

A research group funded by the Norwegian Defense University College (Oslo), recently present main findings on these scientific problems in a comprehensive scientific anthology (32 contributors, 28 chapters). The book elucidate new views and findings on crisis management and understanding of the unforeseen in society and learning processes by introducing the concept of ‘samhandling’, a Norwegian term that connotes interaction, collaboration and cooperation in one word. The anthology is, non-commercial and available free for all: https://press.nordicopenaccess.no/index.php/noasp/catalog/book/36.

However, we assume that the SRA-E members also have both research findings and experience associated with Interaction under Risk and Unforeseen events. Therefore, we invite you to this research-based season.

Abstract

Military operations are very often accompanied by various levels of stress.This article aims to discuss the concepts and factors of stress and samhandling (interaction). The main factors are social support, self-efficacy, resilience and hardiness, implicit coordination, and character strengths. Individual factors are self-efficacy, resilience and hardiness, and character strengths. Team factors are social support, team efficacy, and implicit coordination. A model describing stress and samhandling, including the above-mentioned individual and team factors and their relations, is introduced and discussed. The conclusion is that four individual and two team factors are seen as important if one wishes to counteract the effects of stress and increase both the individual’s and the team’s ability to conduct samhandling (interaction) when facing unforeseen incidents.

This study examines the importance of basic educational, organizational and operational structures of interaction under risk, and how these vary with competence level within an organization.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether there are any basic components that can provide further insight into how competence for interaction under risk can be developed and implemented. The first aim was, therefore, to examine the relationship between components of the basic educational, organizational and operational structures and interaction. The second was to assess whether the perceived level of interaction varies due to competence level, controlling for gender, age, and professional experience. The third aim was to determine whether competence level group membership could be predicted by interaction, social support and the specified educational and organizational components.

A questionnaire survey was carried out in the autumn of 2017. The respondents were male or female employees of the Norwegian Armed Forces (n = 917). A purposive expert sample of 20 different units with different levels of competence were selected and included commissioned and non-commissioned officers, officer cadets, and conscripts. A total of 1050 personnel were employed by these units. All the employees were asked to participate. The response rate was 87%.

The results showed that social support and concurrent learning were the most important predictors of interaction. Social support and concurrent learning combined with basic capabilities, organizational improvisation, training on decision-making, flexibility, general preparedness, and contingency plans accounted for a considerable proportion of the variance in interaction. Interaction, social support, and the specified educational, organizational and operational structure components were also significantly associated with competence level and competence group membership.

The results showed that it could be possible to prepare for unforeseen events by implementing in particular social and educational measures that improve interaction. This study should be especially relevant to those involved in handling and stabilizing unforeseen events and emergency preparedness management.

The presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment is an emerging risk. In this study, we applied the psychometric paradigm to describe and compare risk assessments of lay people and experts from three Southwestern European countries (Portugal, Spain, and France) regarding four hazards: pharmaceuticals in the environment in general, in treated wastewater, in drinking water, and in crops. Factor analysis illustrated that two factors explained most data variance. The dread factor combined immediacy of effects, dread, severity of consequences, and the old nature of hazards. Pharmaceuticals in crops and drinking water scored relatively higher in this factor, as did experts and French respondents. As for the unknown factor, it differentiated between the assessments of lay people and experts. Lay people assessed these hazards as being relatively more known by those who were exposed but less known by science; exposure was perceived as more voluntary and the risk as more controllable. The hazards that scored relatively higher in the unknown factor were pharmaceuticals in drinking water for France and Spain, and pharmaceuticals in treated wastewater for Portugal. Individual-level regression analyses showed that psychometric characteristics were better suited for predicting lay people’s environmental risk perception than experts’ risk perceptions and health risk perceptions. Simple correspondence analysis further illustrated that lay people and experts preferred different types of measures to reduce the presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment.

Introduction: Promoting adaptation to climate change, including protection against heat waves, has become a priority (WHO, 2015). According to the affect heuristic, how people feel about a risk may affect their perceptions of it (Slovic et al., 2007). Previous UK-based research has suggested that UK residents tend to have positive emotions about hot weather, which undermines their intentions to protect against heatwaves (Bruine de Bruin et al., 2016). Here, we examined whether such findings hold in Portugal. We randomly assigned Portuguese residents to instructions to think about a hot weather event without an emotion prompt, with a negative emotion prompt, or with a positive emotion prompt. We examined the effect of emotion prompts on perceptions of demands and resources, as well as to intentions to implement protection against heat.

Method: A total of 159 Portuguese residents (mean age = 41.86; SD = 25.49; range 18-88) were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions which instructed them to think about a hot weather event without an emotion prompt, with a negative emotion prompt, or with a positive emotion prompt. Subsequently, they rated their perceptions of the demands and resources associated with the hot weather event they thought about, and their intentions for protection against heat waves. Participants also assessed their perceived temperature for the hot weather event.

Results: As compared to participants who received the positive emotion prompt, those who received no emotion prompt or the negative emotion prompt reported greater intentions to protect against heat waves. Mediation analyses suggested that this relationship was statistically explained by their higher perceptions of demands posed by heatwaves. Perceptions of their resources to cope with heatwaves did not significantly contribute to the mediation model. There were no significant differences between participants receiving no emotion prompt or negative emotion prompt, in any of the dependent variables. Findings held when controlling for perceived temperatures.

Conclusion: In our Portuguese sample, we replicated UK-based findings that positive emotions about hot weather may undermine intentions to protection against heat waves, perhaps due to lowering perceived demands. However, the UK sample (Bruine de Bruin et al., 2016) showed similar responses after no or positive emotion prompts, suggesting positive views of heat waves. In contrast, our Portuguese participants showed similar responses after no or negative emotion prompts, suggesting negative views of heat waves. We will discuss implications of these findings for research and practice in risk communication across different countries.

Terrorism is by many perceived as one of the most relevant and feared risks facing modern societies. As past research has shown, the individual perception of terrorism oftentimes deviates considerably from expert assessments regarding its gravity as is typical for a risk with a low probability and potentially high impacts. This contribution analyzes several determinants that are hypothesized to influence the public concern for terrorism. I investigate the effect of media coverage, the occurrence and magnitude of terrorist attacks and policy measures, which aim at a mitigation and adaptation for this risk, in a monthly time series framework. I also compare how the effects of these influencing factors differ across the USA and Germany.

The time series analysis utilizes monthly data from the years 1990 to 2015 compiled from various sources: Public opinion data obtained from national surveys (Most Important Problem Database (MIPD) for the USA and Politbarometer for Germany), data on terrorist attacks from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), data on legislation from national government documentation systems, and print media data from nationwide highly circulated newspapers.

The results show that media reporting is identified as the major driver of public concern in both countries. However, increased concern is not primarily caused by a high amount of media coverage but rather by an increase in coverage compared to prior months. This result suggests a certain degree of dulling towards constant levels of media coverage. Furthermore, the effects of the tested determinants differ substantially between the USA and Germany. While the concern for terrorism in the USA is rather driven by the extent of media coverage than by the occurrence of terrorist attacks themselves, these events do lead to a heighten issue salience in Germany even after controlling for media. When further distinguishing the region where the terrorist attacks occurred, my analysis indicates that Germans react overall more strongly to attacks in the USA than in Western European countries. In Germany, political risk management mitigates the fear of terrorism to a certain degree. This effect cannot be confirmed for the USA. I also observe shifts in many of these dynamics over time.

Over time, social groups develop stable cultures of how to perceive, assess, and handle risk. These, so called, risk cultures often arise from shared experiences and result in generalized conclusions, which are transmitted through activities, communication, or implicit norms. Risk cultures, for example, determine specific perceptions, rituals, and the appropriateness of behavior. In general, most characteristics of risk cultures are highly functional and elaborated. However, there may also be fundamental biases, misjudgments or risky routines. Risk culture is a promising approach to understand risk perception and behavior of social groups in complex contexts. However, up to now, no valid or reliable measure of risk culture exists. The current research reports how to develop and test a measurement of risk culture in the context of health and longevity. Building on past research, we identified health-relevant factors and assigned them to different dimensions and levels of risk culture. In an explorative study, we tested the usability of the measure and its fit to the structure of risk culture of laypersons health-relevant perceptions and behavior. We show how understanding the underlying risk cultures helps to optimize health interventions and services, and how the risk culture of subgroups differs.

Various studies showed that when it comes to making decisions about health and safety, we do not always worry the most about the most pressing threats. In the present study, we explored the impact of hazard exposure and experience on the “risk perception gap” by comparing four lifestyle risks and one societal risk in Germany and Israel.

In total, 532 respondents took part in an online survey (Germany: N=269, Israel: N=263) assessing risk perceptions and hazard exposure levels for lifestyles risks (nutrition, physical activity, alcohol and tobacco consumption) and societal risk (terror attacks).

Exposure levels differed significantly between samples. The German sample had a higher exposure level to alcohol and an unhealthy diet than the Israeli sample, but a lower exposure level to physical inactivity, p < .001, d > .27. Moreover, they had an expected substantially lower exposure rate to terror attacks (Germany: 17%; Israel: 54%). For the total sample, higher exposure levels were generally associated with a higher perceived risk, both for the lifestyle risks and the societal risk, indicating relative accuracy. However, in a cross-national comparison, relative accuracy was only found for the societal risk and for one lifestyle risk (alcohol consumption). Israelis reported a higher perceived terror risk and a lower perceived risk through alcohol consumption, but underweighted their risk of physical inactivity while Germans underweighted their nutrition related risks.

The data suggest that risk perception gaps reflect different cultural norms and experiences and that lifestyle risks might be more difficult to be rated accurately than societal risks.

Reactions towards health risk feedback are critical for initiating and maintaining health promoting behaviour, since feeling personally at risk is a core motivator for life-style changes. Previous studies demonstrated that people are not only passive recipients responding to the valence of the given risk feedback but that they process risk information according to their pre-feedback beliefs. However, research focused on single risk indicators, while in real-life, health-related feedback about multiple risk indicators is common. Therefore, the present study examines the impact of pre-feedback expectancies and receiving multiple risk information (cholesterol, blood pressure readings) on post-feedback responses in a community health screening.

Participants of a community health screening (N = 1468) received multiple risk indicator feedback for actual blood pressure and blood lipid levels and returned a questionnaire measuring their affect-related risk perception (worry). Data were analysed with a 2 (‘risk factor’; blood lipids, blood pressure) x 2 (‘valence’; positive, negative) x 2 (‘expected valence’; positive, negative) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with worry about blood lipid readings and worry about blood pressure readings as dependent variables.

Results indicate that participants exhibit disease specific accuracy in risk perception; when the feedback on one risk indicator was elevated, so was the risk perception for this specific indicator (valence blood lipids: η²= .003; valence blood pressure: η²= .031). No compensatory patterns between the multiple health risk indicators were observed. Moreover, expectancies had a major influence on risk perception; when participants expected an elevated reading for one indicator, risk perception was elevated for this indicator regardless of the feedback valence (expected valence blood lipids: η²= .009; expected valence blood pressure: η²= .020). No effect of expectancy (dis)confirmation was observed.

To sum up, the result pattern can be interpreted as an adaptive response to new multiple health risk information: while participants’ risk perception was relatively accurate in regard to the valence of new information, at the same time they seemed to integrate the new information into the pre-existing beliefs. Rather than using every possibility to compensate negative by positive information, participants seemed to take into account as much information as possible, to reduce the chance of potentially serious errors.

Taking expectancies into account when communicating personalized health risk in real life might be critical to provide matched information and support.

The ubiquitous presence of environmental plastics (EPs) in even the most remote areas of the planet has come to pose a significant threat to ecological and human health alike. This, along with their ability to exert adverse effects across systems makes EPs potentially what has been described as a “systemic risk.” Here, we analyze the biological, ecological, and societal aspects of the EPs risk with a special focus on the global and systemic magnitude of this challenge that is still largely underestimated by politics and society.

Due to its material characteristics and ubiquitous use, plastic has reached every place on Earth and poses a systemic risk to the environment and the health of living beings. In order to develop feasible, fair and acceptable approaches that help alter and reduce plastic consumption, the presented research aims at identifying factors and measures that encourage, hinder, or otherwise influence sustainable behavior with regard to plastic products in the German society. With a focus on plastic packaging for food and beverages we study consumer behaviors that include the acquisition and use of more sustainable alternatives for plastic products as well as proper disposal. In a qualitative survey in autumn and winter 2018/19 experts from civil society, science, business, policymaking, and government were asked to answer nine open questions about potential problems regarding plastics, agents, approaches and their own contribution. Replies were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results reveal a great variety in expert perceptions of plastic and its related problems. Furthermore, the experts name a number of relevant agents as well as potential approaches to manage the challenges of unsustainable plastic consumption and describe various future scenarios. However, responses differ largely between expert sectors. The presentation will give an overview of expert perspectives on possible governance measures and recommendations for action. In addition to that, we will discuss to what extent these recommendations are feasible options to reduce behavioral barriers for sustainable consumer behavior.

Plastic is one of the most reported environmental issues of our time. This development has made plastic a political object that has led to a number of governance approaches and policies. The direction of the governance approaches is shaped by how the complexity of the plastic system and its sustainability challenges are understood and prioritized. Although various sustainability pathways for plastics have been suggested, the policies currently in place focuses almost entirely on governing consumer goods, such as single use plastics, and consumer practices, addressing littering and low recycling rates. Other sustainability challenges are not subject to governance, the fossil feedstock and energy use in plastic production or the impact from manufacturing, design or distribution are not on the agenda. Plastic is probable to be an important material also in the future, but policies that address the full range of sustainability issues with plastics are necessary.

Further reading

Nielsen, T., Palm, E., Madsen, S., Nilsson, L.J., Lindblad, E., (2018). Pathways to sustainable plastics – A discussion brief. http://steps-mistra.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/STEPS_Pathway-Discussion-Brief_DIGITAL.pdf

Palm, E., & Svensson Myrin, E. (2018). Mapping the plastics system and its sustainability challenges. Lund University, 37.

Plastic as a synthetic material has started its triumph in the middle of the nineteenth century. Since then, its composition and utilization has taken seemingly endless variations, making plastics one of the most interesting materials of our times with large amounts being produced and used all over the world (Geyer et al., 2017; Andrady & Neal, 2009). However, increasingly the amount and ubiquity of plastic waste have given rise to global worries and the strong conjecture that humanity has unconsciously opened a Pandora’s box without being aware of its potential consequences (SAPEA, 2018). One reason for the raising doubts about the material is that plastics have an extreme life span of up to 500 years. Although due to mechano- and photo-degradation plastics disintegrate over time into micro- and nano-plastics and may not be detectable on first sight anymore, most plastics do not disappear but stay in the global ecosystem with impacts that are not yet known in their complexity (GESAMP, 2015). Moreover, large amounts of plastic particles have not only entered the environment for decades and but also still continue to do so. Geyer et al. (2017) estimate that until 2017, 8300 million metric tons (Mt) of virgin plastics have been produced, and that of the 6300 Mt of plastic waste that has been generated in 2015, only 9 % have been recycled and 12% incinerated. Yet, the vast majority of 79 % has been accumulated in land-fills or the natural environment (Geyer et al., 2017).

In the symposium we want to discuss 1) whether plastic fulfills the criteria of a systemic risk, 2) how plastic is being perceived by experts and the public and what shapes our behavioral patterns of plastic consumption, and 3) what governance approaches might be viable pathways to more sustainable plastic use.

This study has explored the leadership practices of Mission Commanders (MC) in Composite Air Operations (COMAO), giving insight into details in the practices that contribute to interaction and the handling of unexpected events, in an organization that can be described as a High Reliable Organization (HRO) and a Multi-Team System (MTS). The study indicates that joint practice and a joint process for learning and leadership play a vital role in the successful conduct of COMAO in war.

Joint practice during exercises like RED FLAG provides the opportunity to develop the interaction skills that are needed in modern aerial warfare. Important principles in joint practice are that you train as you fight, that you experience a progression in challenge and that all participants participate in the exchange of ideas and lessons learned.

In developing interaction skills, COMAO exercises have a structured process for learning, consisting of four phases: planning, briefing, performing and debriefing. This learning process is present on all hierarchical levels in the COMAO organization. The handling of unexpected events is prepared for in the contingency-planning process. This process is similar to common risk-assessment processes. Actual unexpected events in the performance phase are handled through execution of alternative plans and improvisation. All actions are evaluated and corrected in the debriefing. The role of the MC is vital in all phases of the learning process.

Leadership trust plays a significant role in the overall performance of the COMAO. The lack of trust may reduce task-oriented behavior and increase safety-oriented behavior in the performance phase. Self-confidence, language skills, an ability to create ideas and solve problems, make progress, and have knowledge of different capabilities and their special interests are important characteristics in building leadership trust.

This study is relevant knowledge to how leaders and organizations can prepare and train for handling of unexpected events.

Abstract. This presentation/paper focusses on the relationships between exercise scripts and the need to improvise in emergency preparedness exercises. Two relative large emergency preparedness collaboration exercises is examined (Øvelse Nord 2016 & SCOPE 2017). Our primary observations performed at these two exercises is that the common traits in these two events is that the participants and collaboration partners are governed more by strict manuscripts, where little or nothing is unforeseen. Hence, these events is not training innovative practices or improvisation. Path dependency in emergency collaboration exercise can, as shown in the cases, both provide clarity and understanding of the tasks at hand. On the other hand, script dependency in exercises creates an artificial atmosphere where the dynamics of "real time chaos and urgency" is left out of the training grounds. Training as means to ends becomes vital. The end to all collaboration exercises should be a resilient society, where exercise is exercises and training is training. Increased creativity – a surplus of ideas can be seen as processes in direct opposition to path-dependent exercises. Exercises will in the framework of path-dependency, need to embrace more chaos tolerating unwanted incidents, then something unforeseen can happen and (unwanted) creativity and improvisation can flourish. Be bold. To quote the adventure professor Peter Becker: The new experience, which signals both dynamism and transformation at the same time, makes the adventurer’s past appear in a different light. It shows that the past is not closed and finished with. It does not determine us [humans] forever. It contains hidden possibilities which are just waiting to be used or activated. A changed perception among exercise planners towards acceptance of chaos and disorder as something useful, can help us out of the unwanted learning circles of confirmation and repetition. Only a more adventurous mind-set among exercise directors can break the entrapment of path-dependency in collaboration exercises

The scientific anthology INTERACTION: 'SAMHANDLING' UNDER RISK (SUR) - A Ahead of the Unforeseen (Glenn-Egil Torgersen, ed.), Is the result of a study co-financed by 14 institutions and 32 prominent researchers. he anthology is published as Open Access, non-commercial and available free for all: https://press.nordicopenaccess.no/index.php/noasp/catalog/book/36.

To a much greater extent than today, must focus on 10 specific areas of expertise that should be developed among both emergency services and other sectors to deal with unforeseen risky events - to become better at interacting:

1) Awareness raising of different levels of ambition of interaction (collaboration - collaboration - cooperation - coordination - communication)

2) Raising the concept of "The unforeseen" in one's own organization and others (interacting organizations)

3) Social support (managers and colleagues)

4) Underway learning and improvisation

5) Releasing from traditional ways of thinking / more innovative thinking, and introducing new more indirect learning and training methods

6) Practice solving tasks under small and imprecise information / situation picture

7) Find competency compensation for the learning goals that will cover competence for unforeseen incidents (there are no clear learning goals in preparation for unforeseen events)

8) Train to understand and interact under different management and organizational structures (cross-sectoral interaction)

9) Avoid Organizational Narcissism

10) Training on mood analysis and spontaneous confidence development

We assume that this might face opposition in the agencies and sectors, not in a bad way - for one can hardly find more professional and committed politicians, employees, and volunteers working on crises and disasters. But, there is also a belief in established culture and practice, lack of willingness to change, and little desire to think again - which can confuse ingrained understandings of action and teaching. For their defense, therefore, many will say that the 10 SUR competencies have already been learned and done, and thus deceive themselves. However, if one goes into the agencies' established practice and training program thoroughly, this is not done at all, or not enough (shows our studies).

In summary, the resistance, as we see it, is rooted in three conditions (PES): Prestige, Economy and Self-deception). Such resistance will also be found at the strategic level (political and senior management levels). Therefore, a comprehensive and long-term implementation process will be necessary. For it must be done, unless there is no change and vital development, which will strike back when the next event occurs.

In 1980 The Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNOAF) acquired 72 F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter aircraft. This fourth generation fighter aircraft represented an operational leap forward, but also a risk due to significant changes in technology and operational procedures. During the first period of operation, RONAF experienced a considerable number of accidents. Some of which can be directly related to the introduction to new technology, others due to organizational challenges, especially a high turnover rate among fighter pilot, due to demands in civil aviation, lowered the experience level in the squadrons, hence reduced the necessary supervision level in introducing a brand new aircraft.

The aim of this study is to investigate into the accident reports of 12 accidents and to examine how risk handling changed in the RNOAF during the 40 years of operating the F-16 as the primary fighter aircraft in Norway. The research material is collected from Flytryggingsinspektoratets (The Royal Norwegian Air Force Flight Safety Inspectorate) archives. The rationale behind accidents- and incidents reports are that the aim at revealing causes in order to improve safety. In addition a Fighter pilot who flew between 1995- 2010 was interviewed giving an understanding of the life of a fighter squadron. There has been no severe accidents after 2001, so this fighter pilot also experienced the changes in risk handling.

Organization

Factors identified as contributing factors and areas identified for development

- Structure

- Authorization

- Work demand

- Continuity

Culture

- Threshold to raise voice/ concern

- Reporting

- Experience sharing

- Risk accept

The presentation will highlight these findings and examine how they are related. There were several accidents with loss of life between 1982- 1991. The last ejection was in 2001 followed by a hard landing in 2002 damaging the landing gear (no loss of life in these two accidents). Since then RNOAF has lost no aircraft, however, some severe incidents and near misses from 2002 and up to present, have been included in the study. During the period of operation, we see that the accidents reports changed after 1997, focusing more into the details of human and organizational factors. Currently, RONOAF is introducing the F-35, replacing the aging F-16 fleet. Aspects of this study is considered relevant to the organizational changes occurring presently in the RONOAF and other NATO countries updating from fourth to fifth generation aircraft.

Since the early-1980s and the publication of the seminal works analysing major accidents by first Barry Turner and then Charles Perrow, researchers in the risk and human factors community have made steady progress in our understanding of organizational accidents and disasters in high-risk systems. That period in particular was also marked by a series of major technological disasters - Three Mile Island, Bhopal, the Challenger, Piper Alpha , and the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry sinking - which eventually led to an emphasis within risk and safety sciences upon promoting prospective system resilience alongside learning from cases of past failures. While promoting resilience is often presented as a new paradigm in risk thinking (or Safety II), recently Le Coze has pointed out that since the turn of the millennium we have seen an uncanny recurrence of parallel disasters in precisely the same high-risk systems that could and should have benefited most from this new thinking. In this paper I present some personal reflections upon this situation, advancing the proposition that we may need to consider two further approaches to major system safety, termed Safety III (or high reliability organisation) and Safety IV respectively. Linking these arguments to Ulrich Beck’s theory of the risk society, a new paradigm of Safety IV may now be needed as a step change to counter some of the unintended consequences of a globalised, financialised world – where the goals of global organisations, many of which own and run the high-risk systems that we all depend upon, now focus as much upon ‘chasing value’ as they do upon providing us with societal benefits, including the important benefit of safety.

It has been argued that we know less about deep oceans than we do about the surface of the moon. As human populations and standards of living increase, the demands for resources follow. Ocean seabeds provide a potentially large untapped resource, particularly in minerals such as cobalt crusts, polymetalic nodules, sulfides associated with vents, and rare earths to be exploited for the benefit of mankind. New technologies to exploit these resources, require investments with long lead times uncertain capabilities and ecological impacts that are considerably different from those faced in terrestrially based mining. Economically, uncertainties include variations in the valuation of the materials themselves (for example wide fluctuations in cobalt prices) and potential liabilities. Ecologically, the various resources are associated with quite different ecosystems, potentially fragile, often tiny in scale, and poorly understood at the ecosystem scale, and the lower ability to contain the consequences of mishaps should they occur. Politically, the problem involves a variety of actors, including the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for ocean areas outside of individual nation exclusive economic zones, as well as a number of often small nations that are highly dependent on the ocean for its nonmineral resources for decisions within their exclusive economic zones.

A key feature of these problems is that knowledge is insufficient to resort to many standard decision making tools such as benefit cost analysis using expected values. As a result, we consider the use of several other approaches for addressing these deep uncertainties involving multiple outcomes with multiple decision makers. Starting places for our analysis is the precautionary principle as it has been adopted by the ISA. We extend these ideas with both static decision making approaches (regret based, value of information based, multi-objective based, and robust decision making, RDM and related approaches) and dynamic decision making approaches (real options, Bayesian network relative risk, adaptive decision making, and resilience approaches as well as hybrids of these methods).

We consider how each tools would be used by different decision makers in the process and how information gaps can be most easily overcome. The goal is to move beyond the precautionary principles yet maintain much of its desirable aspects for robustness and resilience for deep seabed mining decisions.

This paper introduces modern slavery as a new category of global risk into Beck’s diagnosis of the World Risk Society. Though not a new phenomenon, slavery continues to be a global problem described by the UK government as ‘the greatest human rights issue of our time’ with over 40 million people now said to be enslaved worldwide. However, current conceptualisations of the ‘risk’ of modern slavery are largely technically or commercially driven and remain underdeveloped from a social scientific perspective, while the sufficiency of national responses to this global problem have been drawn into question. Addressing these issues, this paper reconceptualises the problem of modern slavery through the projective theoretical lens of Ulrich Beck’s World Risk Society thesis. We first foreground critical considerations of slavery as a ‘bad’ created and further exacerbated by modernisation, along with how its associated threats and uncertainties are currently represented and managed by businesses, institutions, and the media, focusing on the UK experience. We then outline the limits of current national level responses before drawing on Beck’s later work to examine the key question of how the ‘catastrophe’ of modern slavery carries ‘emancipatory potential’ in the form of social ‘goods’ such as liberation that can arise through the realisation of a more cosmopolitan modernity in which citizens, governments, scholars, businesses and other actors work together to respond to this global threat. Finally, we discuss the respective strengths and limitations of understanding modern slavery as a world risk, along with the implications of this analysis for Beck’s projective social theory, and close by pointing to some key areas ripe for future research and policy development.

The article will systematically evaluate the research status on social stability risk assessment. Then summarize and comb the social stability risk assessment framework based on different perspectives, and finally analyze the applicable scope and limitations of existing assessment frameworks. A new framework --Adaptive Control Theory for assessing social risk governance is proposed, as active control and advance prevention are added on the basis of the theoretical framework of social combustion. A scientific, rational and comprehensive index system of social stability risk evaluation matched is established, and the index weight is determined by Fuzzy Identification Theory based on 22 typical cases of social stability risk in the past six years. Finally, the paper discusses and analyzes the characteristics of construction projects with different risk levels.

Hospital visitors pose a risk of transmitting pathogens via their hands, which can result in healthcare-associated infections. Using alcohol-based hand-rub is the most effective method to reduce the transmission risk. However, according to several studies, most visitors do not clean their hands adequately during their stay at healthcare facilities. Therefore, in the present study, a field experiment to improve visitors’ hand hygiene behavior was conducted. For the intervention, messages were designed according to Robert Cialdini’s principles of persuasion: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity, and unity. These principles have been successfully applied to change human behavior in many different settings before. For the 14-week long experiment, one poster for every principle was designed, and each was displayed for one week directly above a hospital lobby’s hand-rub dispenser. Before each poster, there was one week without a display on the screen which acted as the control condition. Visitor traffic and dispenser usage in the lobby was recorded via an electronic monitoring system. Overall, 246,102 entries and exits and 16,954 dispenser usages were recorded. During the control weeks, the dispenser usage did not vary significantly. However, the usage significantly increased in five of the seven weeks in which posters were presented. When controlling for traffic, the poster based on the authority principal was most effective, with a relative increase in hand-rub dispenser usage of 29.9%. It was followed by the posters based on the principles of social proof, scarcity, liking, and commitment and consistency, which showed a relative increase in hand-rub dispenser usage of 17.2%, 9.8%, 8.6%, and 5.1% respectively. These findings indicate that the principles of persuasion can be easily and cost-efficiently translated and implemented to initiate behavior change in health-care settings. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

The World Health Organization has declared vaccine hesitancy as one of ten threats to global health in 2019. Specifically, individuals who free-ride on others’ vaccine uptake and protection are a substantial threat to realizing sufficient herd immunity. In the present study, vaccine related attitudes and risk perceptions of free-riders (i.e. individuals who rely on vaccination by others) and prosocial actors (i.e. individuals who vaccinate to protect others) were compared.

In total, 505 respondents took part in an online survey in 2018 assessing (1) attitudes towards free-riding and prosocial vaccination behavior, (2) perceived risk of getting infected with the flu virus and other infectious diseases for the self and others, (3) perceived risk of experiencing vaccine side-effects for the self and others, and (4) perceived effectiveness of the vaccine. ANOVAs and post-hoc tests (Bonferroni) were calculated.

Free-riders and prosocial actors did not differ in their perceived flu risk for themselves (F(2, 395)=2.57, p=.077) and for others (F(2, 410)=1.57, p=.208). The two groups did also not differ in their risk perception for other infectious diseases. Conversely, free-riders (M=4.47) gauged their risk for experiencing flu vaccine side-effects as significantly higher than prosocial actors (M=3.24), F(2, 448)=20.69, p<.001. Moreover, they rated the vaccine effectiveness as lower than prosocial actors, (M=36.86 vs. M=55.39, F(2, 445)=21.55, p<.001).

The results suggest that free-riders do not gauge the disease risk differently but react differently to vaccination itself (the behavior). Thus, public health campaigns need to target cost-benefit ratios and to stress the social benefit of vaccination.

In 2016, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), in collaboration with the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) carried out the 'Inventory of Disturbances' (IV-7), the seventh in a series of surveys that originated in the 70’s. The questionnaire survey investigates how residents experience their physical living environment and is carried out among a representative sample of the Dutch adult population. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management commissioned the research. The results are used to monitor the perceived quality of the living environment and for signaling purposes.

The study examines annoyance from environmental aspects such as noise, odor and vibrations, satisfaction with their living situation and concern about the health effects and impact on the living environment of hazardous conditions (perception).

In the autumn of 2016, more than 8,000 Dutch residents, out of a random sample of nearly 23,000 residents (response: 35%), aged 16 and over completed an on-line questionnaire. They expressed their concerns on 13 different topics (e.g. busy roads, overhead power lines, airport, contaminated soil etc.).

About one in five (22%) residents are seriously concerned (score of 8 or higher on an 11-point scale from 0-10) about their own safety by living in or near a busy street, followed by 20% (seriously) concerned about a lightning strike in the home. Concern about living close to an agricultural area is lowest (6%). There has been a clear downward trend since 1998, with a striking trend for all risk factors requested. For instance, in 2003 more than half of the Dutch population who lived near a busy street or next to it reported to be (seriously) concerned about their safety, compared to 22% in 2016. The downward trend corresponds to the general safety perception in the period 2005-2017 as measured in the Dutch Safety Monitor, another national survey.

Concern about the impact on health was investigated in relation to air (indoor, outdoor), soil, (drinking) water quality and noise around the house. The air quality leads to the largest proportion of residents concerned: about one in three residents (31%) is (seriously) concerned about their own health due to the quality of the outdoor air. Concern about the quality of drinking water is lowest, but still about one in seven residents (14%) are (seriously) concerned.

During the presentation, we will discuss in further detail the way we assessed concern, trends, policy implications and regional differences.

To illustrate how the transfer of scientific findings into generally understandable communication content and guidelines takes shape in practice, findings from behavioural risk research on the subject of kitchen hygiene and subsequent risk communication activities are presented. Poor hygiene when handling food is a major cause of foodborne diseases: roughly 100,000 illnesses that may have been caused by the presence of microorganisms in food, in particular bacteria, viruses or parasites, are reported in Germany every year, and the real figure could be much higher. In three related studies, different factors influencing kitchen hygiene behaviour were investigated. First, an analysis of 100 episodes of various TV cooking shows broadcasted in Germany was conducted to find out whether cooking shows tend to provide viewers with positive role models for good kitchen hygiene. Second, to investigate whether faulty hygiene practices performed by TV chefs influence viewers’ own kitchen hygiene, a study on the mimicry of hygiene lapses was conducted under controlled, experimental conditions. In this study – ostensibly on cooking by following recipes – participants (n = 65) were randomly assigned to one of three versions of a cooking video that differed only with regard to the chefs hygiene practices (Video 1: poor hygiene, Video 2: correct hygiene, Video 3: control video). Finally, kitchen hygiene habits and attitudes among the general public were polled by means of a representative population survey (n = 1,003). Results suggest that hygiene lapses in cooking shows are quite common and that hygiene practices visible in television cooking shows have an effect on viewers’ kitchen hygiene. In addition, discrepancies between reported and observed hygiene practices became apparent. Survey results show that 97% of the participants who have experienced food poisoning in the past assumed that food prepared outside their own home was the source of their infection. Based on these findings, we developed different communication formats including a brochure on kitchen hygiene and short kitchen hygiene videos intended for educational purposes.

Oral presentation

Assessment values such as threshold values are often used for evaluation and prevention of environmental health risks. They are largely derived from epidemiological or toxicological studies with stringent quality criteria. The values exist in various fields such as air and water pollution control as well as assessment of corporeal contaminant loads in the shape of human biomonitoring (HBM).

Exemplary, threshold values for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are used in the field of air pollution control. Particularly, the yearly average value of 40 µg/m³ has been discussed intensively in Germany often with controversy. Especially the questioning of the limit value by some German physicians yielded in a massive media response and as a result contributed to the distraction of the public.

Inquiries by the media, political actors and the public indicate a general lack of understanding regarding the interpretation of threshold values. Misconceptions result from the mixing of applicable time scales of threshold values: E.g., the long-term yearly average value of 40 µg/m³ is often unjustifiably used for assessment of short-term health effects.

Interpretations of contaminant loads in the human body in the context of HBM also pose challenges for communication. Especially the partial lack of HBM-II values makes the evaluation of contaminant loads, above which health damages cannot be ruled out, difficult.

Environmental physicians from public authorities comment on questions concerning single individuals as well as concerning the health of the overall population. Frequently, topics such as NO2 threshold values come to public attention. Partial media coverage may hinder adequate risk communication, especially when a high public or individual concernment exists. Therefore, the refinement and preparation of scientific findings under consideration of the addressee and the appropriate form of communication is important. Organisational structures in public authorities often hinder prompt reactions towards polarizing media coverage. Communication channels are often inadequate.

Prospectively, newer and faster media such as “Twitter”, self-produced video and audio contents with simpler explanations of facts may lead to a larger coverage. Health risks are best communicated personally. Nevertheless a direct communication is time-consuming and cannot be accomplished easily for topics concerning the broad public.

Chatbots are autonomous programs that communicate with users in natural language. Nowadays, they are used by a variety of providers, ranging from globally operating companies to tourism offices in small villages. Are they a potential medium for government risk and/or crisis communication? The answer to this question is approached from four different angles, building on classic communication models:

(1) Communicators, i.e. government agencies, their communication aims and needs, legal issues;

(2) Recipients, i.e. especially lay people;

(3) Content, i.e. features of risk and/or crisis communication;

(4) Medium, i.e. features of current chatbots on the one hand and potential future developments regarding their application on the other hand.

We systematically reviewed the scientific literature regarding the use of chatbots in risk and/or crisis communication as well as some general literature on chatbots. Regarding angle (1), we additionally conducted structured interviews with risk communicators at a government agency.

Some key findings are: Communicators (1) see one of the advantages of chatbots in the potential for saving personnel resources. There is also the hope that a larger audience could be reached by means of this new medium. Another advantage of chatbots is seen in the 24/7 availability. However, concerns are voiced with regard to “shitstorms” or other massive social media activities which might be caused by chatbots and stay unnoticed by the communicators.

According to the literature, dialogic communication with chatbots has a greater resemblance to natural human communication and information acquisition than e.g. entering search terms in a search engine. This is pictured as favourable for the recipients (2).

In crisis situations (3), empathy, transparency, plain language and specific information are pictured as important aspects for the communication with the public. It is questioned whether chatbots will be able to meet these requirements. However, specific advantages of chatbots in crisis communication are also mentioned.

Usage data suggests that many people spend a lot of their time using messenger apps. Chatbots (4), can be implemented into these apps, a possibility that leads some to foresee a reduction of the usage of standard webbrowsers. Thus, the introduction of chatbots might also affect risk communicators who do not use chatbots by diminishing the reach of their websites.

While our analysis of the potential of chatbots for governmental risk and/or crisis communication tried to integrate insights from all four angles, future research should analyse each of the angles and interdependencies between them more closely.

Communication of information on extreme events immediately after their manifestation is a crucial part of disaster management. In the case of seismic events a basic and fundamental query in the crisis stage of the Disaster (Risk) Management Cycle refers to how the earthquake information released to the public immediately after the first seismic tremors affects disaster impacts and management. In general terms, public information immediately after earthquakes involves the announcements of event magnitude, location, damage and secondary effects, as well as possibility of aftershocks.

The objectives of this research are: (a) to present the sources, means and mode of communication of earthquake information (after a damaging event), i.e. experts and scientific institutions, public administration agencies, the mass media and social media etc., and (b) to point to the effects of the earthquake information released on public perceptions and emergency responses, and hence on disaster management. The authors will approach the above objectives by conducting a review of past experiences of seismic crisis communication strategies in Greece and other European and non-European countries. The respective comparative analysis will be based on i) the type and content of seismic information reported in each case, ii) the reliability and coverage of the opted means of communication, iii) the responses/reactions of the exposed population groups iv) possible after-effects and feedback on seismic risk communication strategies. The findings of the analysis of past experiences of seismic crisis communication strategies include: (1) mutual interactions between emergency seismic information strategies and crisis management policies; (2) the trust/mistrust – effect of these strategies on experts and scientific institutions; and (3) conclusions on the basic principles regarding the transmission of emergency public information to minimize impacts and facilitate an effective disaster management.

Aim

This study is part of a larger research initiative exploring the evolution of coordination in humanitarian logistics (HL). The aim of this study is to chart the evolution of HL coordination, what were the triggers and facilitators for change and to reveal if there is a lag between research and practice?

Theoretical perspectives

The progression from a single firm focus to the cross-boundary focus of complex organisations has become possible by the emergence of virtual networks, web services and adaption of new technologies (Ferraro and Iovanella, 2015). They propose the choreography model where network activities and responsibilities are coordinated by all network members with the absence of single prominent member to produce network outcomes. They define choreography as “the network’s capacity to address collaboration among multiple members” (p.5).

Methodology

We apply the choreography model to the HL response during the Haiti earthquake. The Haiti earthquake was the trigger for the choreography of HL facilitated by the use of existing digital media and communications ecosystem. Disasters and social turmoil are inextricably linked and community participation in relief efforts is commonplace (Drabek and McEntire, 2003). In the event of a disaster, the use of social media networks facilitate community participation and influence decentralised coordination of relief supply chains (Ergun et al., 2014, Simon et al., 2015).

Social implications

The performance of humanitarian supply chain networks is a key determining factor when it comes to saving lives and reducing human suffering. Effective information management is of critical importance, particularly in the response stage of emergencies were coordination, agility and speed can decide the fate of many. Understanding how HL coordination has evolved provides new opportunities to improve existing practice by the application of contemporary coordination and collaborative concepts.

Reference

Drabek, T. E. and McEntire, D. A. (2003) 'Emergent phenomena and the sociology of disaster: lessons, trends and opportunities from the research literature', Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 12(2), pp. 97-112.

Ergun, Ö., Gui, L., Heier Stamm, J. L., Keskinocak, P. and Swann, J. (2014) 'Improving Humanitarian Operations through Technology-Enabled Collaboration', Production & Operations Management, 23(6), pp. 1002-1014.

Ferraro, G. and Iovanella, A. (2015) 'Organizing collaboration in inter-organizational innovation networks, from orchestration to choreography', International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 7, pp. 24.

Simon, T., Goldberg, A. and Adini, B. (2015) 'Socializing in emergencies—A review of the use of social media in emergency situations', International journal of Information Management, 35(Generic), pp. 609-619.

Disaster logistics, by definition, aims to provide both physical movement of goods and services as well as management of materials during disasters with high efficiency, under deteriorated conditions of the transport and production systems. In one hand, this system is highly depended on the infrastructural facilities, on the other hand its performance and management are up to the competence of stakeholders who are responsible to regulate, operate and secure disaster logistics system. In 2013, Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (DEMP) released Turkey’s National Disaster Response Plan to define duties and responsibilities of governmental bodies, private sector and NGO’s. Even though the plan provides general framework on disaster logistics, its reflection on the local scale remains insufficient by the means of integration, coordination and collaboration among institutions. In the scope of Disaster Logistics Project (financed by TUBITAK 1001 – 115K468) conducted between 2015-2019, central and local governmental institutions in the case study area had been visited to reveal their approach to disaster logistics systems. The findings of face-to-face interviews and workshops show that institutional network among local governments has great potential to enhance regional and national disaster logistics. In this paper, the structure of the project has been presented and spatial organization of disaster logistics system through local networks has been discussed.

Risk management and risk governance are the concepts that are widely used in theory and in practices. While both consider engagement of multiple actors as an imperative, the theories and frameworks for implementing a process of ‘inclusiveness’ in complex systems remained vague, highlighting the need of a strategic rationale that could be used as reference in the state of art. The purpose of this comment is to integrate the expertise of academia and practice, introducing the concept of “risk footprint” to promote some new synergies between risk governance and risk management processes.

First, we contextualize the existing concepts of risk management and governance in the international debate. Secondly, we introduce the concept of ‘risk footprint’, i.e. the emerging dynamic of cause-effect scope of a risk, and we discuss how it could provide an operational tool for shaping a fair risk governance mechanism. We argue that through understanding the pattern of ‘risk footprint’ we can map key stakeholders either contributing to causes or bearing the effects of risks, while both are non-linear and often stochastic. Third, we discuss critical risk governance deficits, such as the issue of legitimacy of representation, the weakness of decentralization, and the danger of over-aggregation, as possible issues that can be addressed effectively by applying the ‘risk footprint’ principle.

We explain the ‘risk footprint’ concept through the prism of disaster risk reduction. Our conclusions suggest how the concept of ‘risk footprint’ could be used as a guiding principle for defining a comprehensive representation of stakeholders in the governance of emerging and systemic risks. Finally, we define some new challenges and opportunities for research and practices.

Natural gas (NG) currently accounts for about 25 percent of the primary energy consumption worldwide. And its consumption is expected to increase by 1.6% per annum till 2034, leaving behind the growth in oil and coal consumption. Based on this forecast, NG will eventually become the bulk of primary energy source in the next decades. Within the family of fossil fuels, NG is considered as relatively clean with its main constituent being methane. Besides the beneficial composition of NG, it continues to attract much attention because NG can act as a bridge between fossil fuels and renewable energies, as a result of its storage capabilities. In addition to transport by pipeline, NG can also be transported by ship in a liquid state, i.e. at elevated pressure and low temperature. This reduces the volume of NG by several orders of magnitude. After transport by ship, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) needs to be regasified before it can be commercially used. Liquefaction and regasification are two of the most energy-intensive operations in the NG value chain with further potential of improvement by process intensification and integration. In liquefaction and regasification, liquid natural gas (LNG) storage tanks are pivotal process elements.

But LNG storage tanks also represent a relatively big safety hazard because of the large amount of energy being stored and the transients during unloading, loading, and internal recirculation. Given the above mentioned process conditions for which less knowledge is available than under ’normal’ conditions, the technology readiness level of equipment needs to be assumed lower, which adds to the potential safety hazard.

To arrive at an accurate safety assessment, the dynamics and physical phenomena need to be captured in sufficient detail.

In this work an LNG regasification terminal is modelled with a view to potential failures and thus safety risk. Individual process system components are modelled based on first principles. Thermodynamic properties are called from a commercial database. One of the failure processes to be simulated is the loss of containment due to failure of the tank pressure controller or boil-off gas compressor.

In order to cope with rising number of unintentional risks (earthquakes, flooding, industrial accidents etc.) and with intentional and malevolent threats (such as terrorist attacks, cyber-crime, insider threat etc.), high-risk organizations developed over time policies, technologies, procedures and even internal services dedicated, firstly to the enactment and improvement of safety and more recently of security. Analyzing this trend, scholars and international institutions, from the 2000’s century, increasingly advocated the integration of safety and security within high-risk organizations. This would, according to them, improve synergies between both and permit to avoid or overcome potential tensions that might arise from their interactions.

The paper reports from a research which aims to analyze how safety and security in two specific projects in a Belgian Nuclear Research Center (a facility extension and a facility’s access system transformation) are managed. Through a methodology based on onsite ethnography, interviews with actors implicated in the two projects production as well as with affected employees of the organization and documents analysis, it focuses on tensions that may arise from their interplay. This project highlights a typology of tension venues as well as areas in which tensions are latent, not acknowledged or concealed. Mobilizing a vulnerability approach, it argues that, in contrast with the vision portrayed by the literature (IAEA, 2016; Reniers, Cremer, & Buytaert, 2011), tensions should not be avoided or overcome but rather embraced. Indeed, tensions between safety and security are viewed as inherent and necessary for the organization and, on the contrary, their non-acknowledgment and non-structuration is viewed as problematic in the management of both. Through this analysis, the paper provides scholars and practitioners with theoretical and empirical insights in order to embrace safety and security tensions in high-risk organizations and thereby improve its resilience.

The objective of the study is to examine safety and security management, their differences and similarities, and interfaces between them, as well as efforts to integrate safety and security management better in the European process industry. Integrated safety and security management has become a topical issue in the process industry due to the transformation of the industry and impact of digitalization, which create new safety and security challenges, such as viruses, which have attached safety instrumental systems. Furthermore, security threats deriving from terrorism and internal malevolence, have led many industry sectors to grapple with the challenge of managing security and safety concerns in a coordinated and coherent manner. Security of industrial sites, and in particular of the chemical and process industry (CPI), has become a matter of increasing concern in recent years.

The data consists of review of studies on integrated safety and security management, and case studies based on thematic interviews with safety and security experts in the process industry (belonging to the Seveso plants) and the regulatory body in Finland. The method of analysis is qualitative content analysis. The study is part of a 2-year SAFERA (European industrial safety platform) research project that has started in spring 2019. The study includes also Italy and Netherlands. Findings of the study provide insights into the current state of safety and security management. Furthermore, findings show how and when safety management, culture and requirements are at odds with the security management, culture and requirements, and how integrated safety and security management can be further developed.

With the rise of risk-based, goal-setting regulatory regimes, prescriptive requirements aimed at protecting workers, the public and the environment have often been taken out of regulation. Detailed technical requirements regarding best practice in many trades and professions are now contained in standards published by specialist associations, professional bodies and industry interest groups. Standards are often pseudo-regulation and yet the content is controlled by a specific professional group, including content directly related to risk. Processes used to develop content are opaque with committee membership tightly controlled and few published studies. As a result, problems with standards may only become apparent when systems fail, e.g. the Deepwater Horizon blowout. In their inquiry into the causes of the disaster, the Presidential Commission found that the standards of the American Petroleum Institute (API) which are commonly relied upon by companies and regulators in the offshore drilling industry have been captured by industry financial interests and now represent lowest common denominator, rather than industry best practice.

The paper draws on a case study of a major update to the Australian Standard for design and construction of high pressure hydrocarbon pipelines. The values, priorities and decision making of the expert professional engineers who, as a committee, formulated major changes to technical requirements for pipeline safety, were investigated using data drawn from 24 survey responses (representing approximately half the committee members) and thirteen interviews. The analysis shows that, rather than being captured by industry commercial interests, the standard is seen by the experts involved as a key repository of professional knowledge although what constitutes legitimate knowledge was the subject of some disagreement. Standards committee membership provides significant professional benefits. Senior engineers expend enormous personal effort and financial resources on updating the standard and feel a high degree of ownership of it. This comes with significant advantages for public safety but also some potential downsides related to generational change and to inclusion of non-engineering related requirements in the standard.

The paper argues that processes for development of the content of technical standards are in effect messy processes of knowledge making in a relatively small expert group. Group members debate over what is the right path and come to a resolution that has a significant impact on public safety. Such processes are not well understood and as a result more active research in this area would be very useful in improving risk governance.

This paper focuses on the conceptual challenge of defining systemic risk with a specific interest in the temporal logics embedded within complex and highly global systems. It uses green finance as a case study in order to unpack how financial institutions/organisations constitute and transmit socio-economic risk. Banks, asset management companies, non-banking financing vehicles (shadow banks), regulators, etc., operate within different, and sometimes, conflicting temporal logics that shape their objectives, priorities, incentive structures, and planning horizons. This, in turn, defines their appetite for risk and potentially introduces risks into the system over time within and across systems (i.e. social, economic, political and environmental). Time and temporality, however, is often invisible and taken for granted in both research on systemic risk and financial markets/systems. This paper presents the preliminary discussion on the concept of temporality in the theory of systemic risk, and the methodological framework for investigating the temporalities of systemic risk in the financial system.

Keywords: Systemic risk; resilience; risk assessment

Abstract

In the Netherlands, the National Risks Assessment (NRA) methodology is based on scenario analyses, including an estimation of the impact and probability of the different scenarios. This estimation is done by experts from the Dutch network of safety and security analysts. The focus of this NRA method are the single scenarios. To enrich the analyses the Dutch network also performs analyses of the cascade effects of disruption of vital infrastructure, the interconnection to digitization and vital infrastructure and, for example, the interaction between the long term developments as geopolitics and climate change.

The systemic risk approach is an additional opportunity to enrich the NRA, because of the focus on the interdependencies and interconnections within a system as well as its general vulnerability. To further develop the notion of systemic risk to a tool which can be easily applied in the context of risks to society, one has to ‘translate’ the theory behind systemic risksinto a risk assessment method.

The Dutch approach is to on the one hand identify the fundamental pillars that ensure the functioning of a certain system (such as the distribution of electricity) and, on the other, those factors that may pose a threat to it. By analysing both aspects, one reaches a better understanding of system strengths and vulnerabilities. Facilitating the development of further actions aimed at ensuring the system’s continuity.

During the presentation we would like to present our first experiences of analysing systemic risks using this ‘pillars and threats’ approach.

Work-related stress is recognised as a global problem with associated costs between US$ 221.13 million and US$187 billion per year. The increase of these costs during the last decade and the high number of absence days due to work-related stress, highlight the importance to identify the causes of work-related stress and to develop systemic stress prevention strategies. Whereas a variety of studies focus on stressors which are located in the work environment, this study focuses on psychosocial hazards and their relationship to stress. More particular, social stressors which play an important role when working in teams, as increasing type of collaboration, are analysed. Based on an extensive literature review and an interview based primarily study a questionnaire was developed. In total, data from 720 individuals was collected. Results indicate that social stressors are significantly negative correlated with the individual wellbeing. In particular, discrimination and a lack of information sharing within work teams are significant predictors for a decreased wellbeing. Based on these findings, systemic stress prevention strategies, including primary, secondary and tertiary prevention strategies were developed. These recommendations can support organisations to prevent stress and to identify and to reduce sources of stress at an early stage.

Electric power systems extensively rely on cyber-physical systems to control physical components through cyber-based commands. Thus, the vulnerability to cyber threats requires an efficient allocation of resources to mitigate the risk of attacks. Common practices guide the selection of mitigation actions by prioritizing the cyber threat scenarios through a qualitative assessment. These practices can result in sub-optimal allocations of resources to protect the system. To overcome these drawbacks, we quantify the risk of cyber threats to the system through a comprehensive analysis of the system vulnerabilities. This analysis relies on Bayesian networks, which provide a solid framework for probabilistic risk assessment by representing cyber threat scenarios as combinations of cascading events. In addition, we develop an optimization model to determine the non-dominated mitigation strategies to protect the system from cyber threats. Specifically, the minimization of the risk of cyber threats supports the selection of mitigation actions, considering budget and technical constraints. The optimization model provides additional insight into risk management at different budget levels.

This study is based on the “psychometric paradigm” methodology that is aimed at finding risk perception dimensions by analyzing different judgments people make about risks and dangers (Slovic, 1987; Slovic, 2000). There are studies that have already used psychometric scales to examine the perception of cyber risks (van Schaik et al. 2017; Huang et al. 2010; Garg & Camp 2012), but our work makes several contributions to this research:

1. Previous studies were focused exclusively on cyber risks, but we include traditional risks used in “psychometric paradigm” research. Our list of risks is related to studies conducted in Russia (Mechitov & Rebrik 1990; Rodionova et al. 2009) and consists of 60 items – from natural catastrophes to terrorism. We added several cyber risks with highest ratings according to previous research: communication technologies (Bassarak et. al 2017), identity theft (van Schaik et al. 2017; Oliveira & Baldi 2019), cyberbullying (van Schaik et al. 2017; Oliveira & Baldi 2019), hackers and viruses (Huang et al. 2010). We also added Internet fraud as the most general type of cyber risk.
2. Our study uses not only “classical” psychometric scales that cover two main dimensions of risk perception – “dread” and “unknown” risk (Slovic, 1987). Our claim is that “classical” scales are insufficient to uncover the social dimension of risk, so we apply the notion of responsibility to make it explicit (compare with the idea of Bassarak et al. (2017) to include the “dispute” and “morality” scales). Our extended psychometric model includes 4 questions concerning the responsibility of some actor for preventing and compensating risk into the traditional questionnaire (8 judgments).
3. We adapt the methodology for online survey with small or absent financial incentive, unlike previous studies that were conducted predominantly offline. Recent online studies used virtually the same questionnaire as in offline mode with the result of low response rate and long complete time (Bassarak et al. 2017; Fox-Glassman & Weber 2016). We apply a split questionnaire design in our study – each participant responds to a random subset of risks and judgments (see Bronfman & Cifuentes (2003) for similar design).

The field phase of our study is still in progress. In the presentation we will discuss not only the mentioned methodological issues but also the preliminary results, i.e. the place of cyber risks among the traditional risks on the risk perception dimensions obtained via the PCA technique and the results of clusterization of risks.

With the Internet of Things (IoT) becoming increasingly prevalent in people’s homes, new threats to residents’ privacy and security are emerging. One such new threat is the cyber-physical attack; a cyber-attack with physical consequences. In a 2.5-month international field experiment, people’s perceptions of such cyber-physical risks and responses to irregularities that were systematically introduced in the behaviour of IoT devices were studied. Such irregularities may point to the IoT system’s security been compromised.

Various IoT devices were placed in nine Dutch and seven UK households, including a smart speaker, a smart lamp, a security camera, a smart power plug, various sensors (e.g. arrival sensor), and a smart scale. After a few weeks in which the participants could get used to the devices, multimodal irregularities were gradually introduced (e.g. switching a device on or off) with 2 to 3 levels of intensities. Following that, the introduction of experimental irregularities was disclosed to the participants (without details), and then introduced again, testing whether people’s reactions improved in identifying them. During the study, the participants were regularly interviewed and asked to complete several online questionnaires. We report findings of the interviews here. They are preliminary as analyses are still ongoing.

Only some people mentioned hacking as a risk when asked for costs, risks, and benefits of the provided IoT devices at the beginning of the study. When the irregularities were introduced, only some irregularities were noticed by the participants. The more severe the irregularities became, the more often they were noticed. In none of the cases, the participants actually mentioned hacking as the presumed cause of the reported events. Instead, people attributed the irregularities to (an error in) the devices or the associated applications, to their housemate doing something with a device, to an automated rule they had set themselves, to the researchers doing this, or simply stated “I don’t know” when asked about the presumed cause of the event. After revealing that the irregularities were introduced by the research team—more irregularities were noticed and attributed to the work of the researchers. However, participants also reported other events, that were not controlled by the researchers.

One preliminary conclusion is that current IoT devices have inherent limitations and/or design flaws which might effectively desensitize users from perceiving ‘odd’ or ‘inexplicable’ behaviours. Such desensitization might hinder people from adequately identifying changes in the behaviour of devices that may result from a cyber-physical attack.

Digital technologies and applications are more and more embedded into social and economic practices and increasingly shape and sustain everyday life, often without being noticed. Digitalisation can therefore be understood as a sociotechnical process where the application of digitizing techniques to broader social and institutional contexts renders digital technologies infrastructural. Along with many benefits, this process also entails complex and interconnected challenges and risks. A broader public discourse about how to balance opportunities and potentially adverse consequences of digitalisation is – despite its relevance for the future of society – currently largely absent. However, the notion of consciously shaping digitalisation for the common good is gaining momentum, in particular in the literature approaching digitalisation from a sustainability research perspective.

With this paper, we aim to enrich the debate on digitalisation and sustainability by applying the concept of systemic risk. This concept allows exploring the complexity and ambivalent potentials of digitalisation by investigating its inherent properties of risk. The notion of risk furthermore implies that there is at least some leeway for decision-making and freedom of choice and provides a powerful lens to re-orientate thinking about the future.

Therefore, we first underpin digitalisation with the concept of systemic risk and outline the key characteristics of systemic risk and how they apply to digitalisation. We then highlight governance challenges of systemic risks and take a look at the current governance of digitalisation in Germany. Based on this analysis, we identify weak spots in the governance of digitalisation as a systemic risk. Finally, we discuss how formats of deliberative democracy could complement current practices in order to identify unintended consequences of digital change and to develop sustainable solutions how they could be dealt with. For that purpose, we will particularly explore the format of so-called future councils, outline their main features, and discuss how they could be useful in addressing the systemic risks of digitalisation on different levels of governance.

Regulators and Big Pharma are increasingly feeling societal pressures to make health information available to citizens and patients. Regulatory Transparency has become a central theme and a key pillar of national and international health policies. Thousands of documents ranging from clinical trials to post-marketing safety data are now made available to virtually everyone. The expected benefit of this new development is that it will help healthcare professionals and patients to make better informed decisions that could improve health outcomes. The transparency movement, however, creates several challenges as the information needs to be made accessible and comprehensible to both experts and patients. This is especially true of genetic information that tends to be multi-factorial, complex and ambiguous. In this “Big Data” environment, so-called algorithms can be a very attractive way to translate this vast amount of information into decision support tools. This trend is potentially a game changer as it will increasingly frame and drive prescribers’ choices. This presentation tackles the opportunities and challenges of modelling the ever-increasing amount of genetic data used for medical decision-making. It draws on conceptual as well as empirical research to analyse the implications of ongoing development of algorithms with genomics as part of the emerging regulatory approach in medicines.

In the past few years we have been witnessing the fast development of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Many fields are already profoundly influenced by this development. The impact is noticeable in the field of medicine, especially for precision medicine, both from the perspective of diagnosis and treatment. Algorithms, as one of the tools of artificial intelligence may help to ensure that genetic testing is effectively and efficiently used. Various types of algorithms are used within this context and their definition can vary significantly. Thus, the questions of their validity, reliability, and regulation are being raised. To understand how algorithms are built and used, we interviewed over 20 experts from the field in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and United Kingdom. We focused on healthcare experts, developers of algorithms and regulatory representatives. Our research provides the first systematic analysis of expert views on the inclusion of genetic risk information into algorithms used for precision medicines. Our study suggests that despite progress and great potential there is room for improvements before algorithms become the key risk-sensitive tool that supports a patient-centered model of risk information.

Risk communication research often provides normative advice to organisations on how to communicate risks effectively (Arvai & Rivers III, 2014). However, it remains, often unclear, whether organisations are willing and / or able to implement the advice (Raupp, 2015). The willingness and / or ability to implement risk communication advice depends on what factors are influencing the organisational risk communication practice (Chess & Johnson, 2010). Therefore, it is important to understand the constitution of risk communication, in order to know how to improve it (Wardman, 2014). Although there is research on the internal (e.g. Tuler, Langkulsen, Chess, & Vichit-Vadakan, 2012) and external (e.g. Shen, 2009) factors influencing organisational risk communication, there is no recent review of such research. This paper fills this gap with a review of research on factors influencing organisational risk communication by public agencies. Public agencies are frequently required to communicate risks. The results of the paper show a variety of factors influencing organisational risk communication such as diverse goals, communicative abilities, routines, tangible and intangible resources, perspectives on stakeholders, internal and external relationships between organisations and with the public, as well as political influence and societal culture. The results support practitioners to better reflect and understand their own risk communication practice. The results help researchers to identify research areas with a high relevance for organisational risk communication.

References

Arvai, J., & Rivers III, L. (2014). Effective risk communication. Earthscan risk in society series. London: Routledge.

Chess, C., & Johnson, B. (2010). Risk communication by organizations: The back story. In R. L. Heath & H. D. O'Hair (Eds.), Handbook of risk and crisis communication (pp. 323–342). Routledge.

Raupp, J. (2015). Strategizing Risk Communication. In D. Holtzhausen & A. Zerfaß (Eds.), Routledge handbooks. The Routledge handbook of strategic communication (pp. 520–532). New York, NY: Routledge.

Shen, X. (2009). Flood risk perception and communication within risk management in different cultural contexts: A comparative case study between Wuhan, China and Cologne, Germany (Dissertation). Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn, Bonn. Retrieved from http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/2009/1856/1856.pdf

Tuler, S., Langkulsen, U., Chess, C., & Vichit-Vadakan, N. (2012). Health and Environmental Risk Communication in Thailand: An Analysis of Agency Staff’ Perspectives on Risk Communication With External Stakeholders. Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 5, 52–73.

Wardman, J. K. (2014). Sociocultural vectors of effective risk communication. Journal of Risk Research, 17, 1251–1257.

Lately, the study of the negative effects of disinformation, propaganda and fake/ false news have crossed the boundaries of a single discipline and have captured the attention of academics and decision-makers in the European and Euro-Atlantic area.

Starting from the premise that this kind of phenomena poses risks and threats to the ordinary citizen and the democratic societies of which he is a part, in this paper we propose an interdisciplinary approach, which will analyze various methods, instruments and techniques derived from the field of risk communication, from the perspective of efficiency to prevent the negative effects of disinformation and fake news at the level of the citizen.

By doing so, we will test and apply various risk communication models to different fake/ false news proven by fact-checkers (e.g. EU vs. Disinfo initiative - https://euvsdisinfo.eu/), which can be replicated at a larger community scale, depending on the needs of different decision-makers.

Acknowledgement: „This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P3-3.6-H2020-2016-0135”

Recent research has demonstrated that climate change perceptions are strongly related to worldviews (Guber, 2013; Jones, 2014). Drawing on theories of reconstructive memory (Bartlett, 1932) and cultural theory (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982), we assume that the recollection and communication of climate change information is affected by one's own worldview as well as by the worldview of one's target audience. In an experimental study (N=266), participants read a narrative (600 words) about three politicians, each described as holding a specific worldview (individualistic/free market oriented, hierarchical/technology-oriented, egalitarian/ecology-oriented), who tried to mitigate climate change problems. After two time intervals (1 day, 1 week), participants retold the narrative to a hypothetical person as audience who was characterized as either an individualist, hierarchist, or egalitarian (or a neutral control condition). The retellings were recorded in free text format; additionally, the participants' worldview was assessed and participants were clustered into four corresponding groups. Results show that retellings are selectively reconstructed according to the worldview of the participant, becoming more compatible over time, as well as targeted to the audience’s worldview. More specifically, participants holding a more egalitarian worldview reconstruct the narrative in a less distorted way than do individualists and hierarchists. Furthermore, a target audience with an explicit worldview leads to more distorted retellings than a neutral audience (control condition). No interaction was found between the worldviews of the participant and the audience. Results indicate how the perception and communication of climate change are shaped by fundamental underlying beliefs such as worldview. By that, they demonstrate motivated aspects of how people recollect and communicate information about climate change, which might help explain effects such as polarization.

Phishing is the fraudulent practice of obtaining sensitive and private information by exploiting the victim’s trust. Adopting a dual-process theory of decision making, we hypothesize that, compared to participants adopting a more effortful and analytic decision making style, participants adopting a more automatic and intuitive decision making style, would report a higher number of past phishing experiences, such as identity theft or credit card misuse. For this purpose, we have conducted a large scale (N = 1428) questionnaire-based study involving a Norwegian population sample. The questionnaire included items on misuse of personal information similar to those of the Eurostat module on Internet security. Furthermore, we added items from the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). The CRT measures performance on questions for which the most intuitive response is incorrect; in order to provide a correct response, participants need to overwrite a fast-but-wrong response with a slow-but-accurate one. For this reason, the CRT is believed to measure participant’s tendency to answer using an intuitive or analytic decision making style. Our results show that our main hypothesis is verified, since we found a statistically significant association between CRT scores and past experiences of phishing. In line with previous research, sex differences were revealed for the CRT scores, and also educational level was associated with CRT scores, with more educated individuals showing a higher CRT scores, and hence a more analytical decision making style. Gender did not explain phishing per se, while age and education significantly did, with younger and less educated individuals having experienced more credit card misuse and identity theft compared to the older and more educated participants. Overall, our main results show that (i) the CRT can be used as a proxy to understand the proneness to phishing (ii) compared to individual with a more analytic decision making style, impulsive decision makers report more phishing experiences (iii) demographic characteristics allow to understand which section of the population is more prone to risk when it comes to phishing. These results can guide researchers and policymakers in understanding what section of the population needs to be attentioned with regards to cybersecurity; additionally, these results can also guide future interventions that should be specifically suited for the type of groups at risk highlighted. Such interventions will be the focus of the future research of our research network, which aims at raising awareness about data privacy and cybersecurity risks.

One of the most important issues in regulation is deciding upon the appropriate level of evidence, as well as choosing the scientific methodologies that are considered best suited for generating scientific evidence for regulatory purposes. Due to the direct consequences that regulatory decisions have for human health and the protection of consumers, there is often controversy about which of two alternative regulatory strategies to pick: applying evidence requirements that are as strict as possible (in order to reduce false positives), or alternatively relaxing those requirements (and minimizing false negatives).

In this contribution, we critically examine this controversy in the case of the European regulation of health claims (claims about a relationship between consumption of specific food ingredients and desired health outcomes).

Our analysis shows that choices regarding the required level of evidence have direct methodological consequences: they may, for instance, favor certain methods over others, or influence scientific disciplines by creating demand for particular types of studies.

We conclude that obtaining the “best possible” scientific evidence is not necessarily the most appropriate strategy in regulatory decision making. The case of health claims regulation shows that more permissive strategies based on minimizing false negatives may be more efficient for protecting consumers than requiring more accurate and complete knowledge (with the aim of minimizing false positives). We argue that previous empirical analysis of the real-world consequences of alternative regulatory options, rather than a priori considerations, should underlie the decision about the demanded level of scientific evidence.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has developed a quantitative risk assessment model to help inform the allocation of inspection resources for hatcheries. A pilot project, conducted in 2017, assessed the model’s performance in 29 Canadian hatcheries which resulted in a Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.58 (p=0.001) between the model outputs (expressed in annual DALYs) and the risk assessment performed by CFIA’s senior inspectors.

From July 2017 to June 2018, inherent and mitigation data were collected using a questionnaire shared with 91 hatcheries throughout Canada, and completed by inspectors. Analysis also included compliance information obtained from internal data systems.

Ninety one percent of hatcheries (82/90; 1 was not operating) submitted a questionnaire. Sixty three hatcheries were involved in the poultry meat production chain, 12 in the table-egg production chain, and 7 in both chains. Inherent risk factors were found, such as mixing eggs from different supply flocks when placed in hatchers (77%), and using fixed incubators trolleys (27%). Fifty nine hatcheries (72%) reported implementing multiple procedures to mitigate the risk associated with the incoming supplies, while 76 hatcheries (93%) reported using more than one sanitation practices for the equipment.

Based on the model output, hatcheries were categorized based on their individual contribution to the overall risk: category 1 representing the highest risk to category 4 representing the lowest risk. Four hatcheries contributing to 71% of the risk was categorized as high risk (category 1), while 6 hatcheries contributing to 16% of the risk were categorized as medium risk (category 2). Twenty six hatcheries (contributing to 11% of the risk) were assigned to category 3 (low risk) and 46 (contributing to 2% of the risk) were assigned to category 4 (very low risk). In conclusion, the results will be used to proportionally allocate inspection resources based on the hatchery’s risk contribution.

The present study aimed to investigate food risks associated to street food markets in the Italian context. The expression "street food" refers to all foods and beverages prepared and/or sold by vendors in street markets for immediate or later consumption. The phenomenon is increasingly popular across Italy: in each town, weekly street markets offer the possibility to buy a lot of different types of street food.

Very few is known about the microbiological and chemical risks associated to this type of food. However all steps of street food production and vending can be vulnerable, in particular: the storage and preparation of meals by sellers and the characteristics of the vending site (as the availability of water and electricity) where the market is located.

Starting from these assumptions a research project was implemented and structured in the following phases: (1) Identification of the main food risks sources by means of microbiological analysis of the food exposed in the vending stand; (2) Investigation of the citizens’ attitude and risk perception towards this kind of food; (3) Definition of competent authorities’ recommendations to guarantee the food safety of foods sold in street markets. In the present study, only the results of the second and third phases of the project are described. A national survey was carried out in 2017 through the CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing) method. The questionnaire investigated the opinions, purchasing habits and perceptions of the Italian citizens towards the risks associated to the foods sold in street markets.

A total of 1,008 Italian consumers and regular clients of the street markets completed the questionnaire. Among them, 89.5% (n=902) specified that they usually purchase food products. Fruits and vegetables are the most purchased foods by respondents. The aspects that affect the respondents’ choice of the seller were also investigated. The hygiene of the vending stand is considered the most important aspect, followed by the place of origins of the products and the trust relationship with the seller. In relation to the risk perception, respondents identify the hygiene of the personnel involved in the food preparation and/or sale as the main source of risk for their health.

Starting from the research results, a final document containing the good practices for the prevention of risk related to foods sold in street markets was drafted and spread among the competent authorities and street food vendors.

Consumers are increasingly eating in restaurants where the risk of getting a foodborne illness is higher than at home. The mandatory posting of inspection scores at food establishments has been introduced as means for conveying information about the hygiene level to consumers. A public food safety information disclosure system is effective if it conveys information about risk. Currently, most public food safety information disclosure systems are technical descriptions of the compliance of the food establishment with official hygiene standards. From risk communication perspective, they may not sufficiently address consumers’ specific concerns. In order to improve the effectiveness of food hygiene inspection reports it is important to understand how consumers interpret and use them. In order to fill this research gap, we conducted two experiments that focused on the Finnish food safety information disclosure system Oiva from consumer perspective. Applying the risk communication model (Frewer, 2004), the objective was to test whether consumers assess personal risk from a food hygiene inspection report, and analyse how the report guides their behavioural intentions.

Study 1 examined university students’ (n=98) impressions of the overall inspection score (smiley). Content analysis revealed that impressions about risk and one’s own behaviour were most frequently mentioned, followed by impressions about the restaurant and Oiva. Binary logistic regression indicated that low overall grades were associated with increased perceived risk and the effect of grade on behavioural intention was direct and not mediated by perceived risk.

Study 2 was a survey-experiment on the 18-65 years old Finnish population (n=1513). A mediation analysis using binary logistic regression and linear regression revealed that the overall inspection result (smiley) had a direct influence on intention to eat at the restaurant. Perceived risk instead mediated the influence of verbal information about the risk type (indirect vs. direct) on behavioural intention.

The results suggest that the overall score does not convey risk to consumers whereas verbal information about the risk type does. The overall score elicited other impressions that were not related to risk, which ultimately led to a decision to eat or not to eat at the restaurant. From the risk communication perspective, this finding suggests that while the overall inspection result raises impressions about food-related risks, it does not sufficiently inform individuals what that result means in terms of personal risk, and what they should do. Therefore food hygiene inspection reports need to explicitly and clearly respond to the specific concerns of consumers.

This research aims to draw together the theory and practice in classifying the categories of uncertainties in emergency situations. In theoretical typologies, uncertainties are categorized mainly as: aleatory uncertainties which are unpredictable, random or stochastic in nature; epistemic uncertainties which are caused due to lack of knowledge; and uncertainties due to ambiguities which do not have a clear meaning (Walker, Kwakkel et al. 2010, Knoblauch, Stauffacher et al. 2018). However, practice reveals uncertainties that cannot be placed in none of these above-mentioned categories. For instance, judgmental uncertainties (e.g. setting of parameter values in codes), computational uncertainties (i.e. inaccurate calculations), modelling errors, partially formed value judgements; and social and ethical uncertainties (i.e. how expert recommendations are formulated and implemented in society, and what their ethical implications are) (French et al, 2017). Hence, this research tries to find a better structure of uncertainty typologies while comparing theory and practice.

In order to identify and classify different categories of uncertainties, two methods are applied: Systematic literature review in order to identify theoretical typology and a non-participatory observation of emergency exercises in order to identify uncertainties in practice.

Our sample (n= 54) of the relevant literature is drawn based on a systematic search in two search engines: Web of Science and Scopus. Furthermore, a snowball method is used to make sure that all relevant articles are covered.

Non-participatory observation of nuclear emergency exercises was used for identifying different aspects of uncertainty impact on different actors involved in emergency management, by first observing and then discussing the notes taken. This observation has been done in 6 countries, 11 national and 1 international exercise, in 29 observation points under the H2020 CONFIDENCE project.

Results show that there is some inconsistency between theoretical categorization and practical existing types of uncertainties. For instance, there are uncertainties related to communication, social, political, ethical, psychological, emotional, security, and decision-making aspects that need to be further explored and clearly classified. Furthermore, types of uncertainties differ between different stakeholder categories, between different study areas as well as along the sequence from knowledge to decision-making. Finding a common structure to properly classify uncertainties would open the path to the efforts of finding communication strategies and improve decision-making under uncertainty. By doing so, this research contributes to the overall goal of establishing the knowledge content pillars for risk analysis as a science in itself.

The past eight years have seen prevailing notion that if the tsunami protection had been risk-informed the Fukushima accident would have been averted because of the existence of sufficient empirical evidence in this region of historical tsunami. While it is undeniable that the proactive use of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is vital for risk management of complex socio-technical systems like nuclear power plants, such simplified recognition may involve hindsight in terms of underestimating the incertitude of scientific knowledge regarding the possibility of mega-tsunami at that time. The author does not persist that the accident was inevitable owing to the lack of certain evidence shared among epistemic community. Instead, this paper will shed light on a deeper perspective of the Fukushima lessons: how can we adequately manage risks reflecting that our knowledge is always conditional and has limitation? To address this aporia, the author suggests incorporating explicitly the aspect of strength of knowledge underpinning risk assessment and management into the safety goals. Some countries like US have addressed the issue of “how safe is safe enough” by establishing the safety goals through deliberation among experts and public. Nuclear professionals have set out some quantitative surrogates of these goals, for instance core damage frequency in the form of “ten to the power of minus X”, and have tried to compare with them the numerical results calculated by PRA for benchmarking the adequacy of safety activities. Although considerable studies have been devoted to dealing with various uncertainties associated with PRA, little attention has been paid to them in societal and political discourse. In some cases, PRA and safety goals had functioned as an explanation tool for emphasizing the sufficiency of current safety level and as an indulgence for ceasing effort to improve risk management. Rather, safety goals should be used for retaining prudent and reflexive attitude toward our bounded rationality with highlighting to what extent we understand the systems and to what degree expert communities have common recognition regarding the weight of evidences. It involves keeping a distance not only from arrogant conviction as we know everything but also from agnostic pessimism as we never take advantage of risk assessment unless we perfectly demonstrate its completeness.

The author will discuss the ways of embodying such new strands of safety goals and its potential and challenges in terms of practicality.

Nuclear emergencies confront scientific experts, radiation safety authorities and publics with several challenges, such as potentially large-scale, long-lasting environmental contamination, disagreement between experts on what constitutes a safe level of radiation, differing risk perceptions between experts and affected populations, asymmetrical distribution of risks and benefits, stigmatization of populations and goods in affected areas, and important social uncertainties.

As noted by several scholars, society’s vulnerability to disasters arises not only from their magnitude or unpredictability, but also from the manner in which people and institutions respond to these events.

To this end, emergency plans are currently set up at national, regional or local level to prepare the response and help mitigate the impacts of such events. However, plans can never address the full complexity of potential nuclear accidents. In addition, they may in turn introduce new vulnerabilities, as certain assumptions underlying decision-making (e.g. on people’s compliance with recommended actions) may not be valid in practice. Identifying these vulnerabilities can stimulate creative thinking in order to generate new strategies to cope with a hazard, and thus contribute to enhancing societal resilience. While latest years have seen an increasing focus from safety authorities, policy-makers and researchers on the technical aspects of vulnerability to nuclear accidents (e.g. the recent stress tests on nuclear installations), there has been considerably less attention to the social dimensions of vulnerability.

In this contribution, we reflect on social vulnerabilities and emergency plans taking nuclear emergency management as a case study. Specifically, we focus on public concerns associated with nuclear accidents, expected behaviour, public information and participation. Data underlying the study originate from large-scale national surveys in Belgium and Spain, as well as surveys with people living in the vicinity of nuclear installations. Additionally, our analysis is informed by an exploratory literature review on stakeholder and public participation in nuclear emergency preparedness and response and related non-nuclear fields.

This contribution relies in research conducted in the framework of the European projects CONFIDENCE and ENGAGE. These projects are part of CONCERT, which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 662287.

The plight of individuals who are at risk is often alleviated by the pro-social actions of others (e.g., benevolent acts, philanthropic endeavors and charitable donations). However, what motivates individuals to help others at risk is not fully understood. In two studies, we assessed the extent to which an individual’s willingness to act pro-socially was influenced by the number of times that he/she was exposed to information about a person at risk. In Study 1, participants (N = 244) were exposed to such information across three consecutive weeks either on three separate occasions, one occasion, or not at all. At the end of the study, all participants were awarded a monetary bonus and invited to donate all/some of the bonus to a charity that could help such people at risk. The results showed that a higher proportion (p < 0.01) of participants who saw the information on three occasions (cf. one occasion or no occasions) donated to charity and, on average, they also donated a higher amount of money (p < 0.01). Study 2 tested whether the results of Study 1 were attributable to a ‘recency effect’ (i.e., that in Study 1 pro-social behaviors were highest among participants who saw the information on three occasions because these were the only participants exposed to the information immediately prior to being asked to make a donation). In Study 2, participants (N = 163) were exposed to the information about a person at risk in either the first of three consecutive weeks or in the last of the same three consecutive weeks. Again, participants were awarded a bonus and invited to donate all/some to a relevant charity. The results showed that a recency effect existed, with significantly (p < 0.05) more of the participants who were exposed to the information in the last (cf. first) week making a donation and, on average, donating a higher amount (p < 0.05). Notably, across both studies, the participants who donated the highest mean amount were those in Study 1 who saw the information about someone at risk on multiple occasions.

The UK Government has committed to reducing national CO₂e emissions to 80% of 1990 levels by 2050 to tackle climate change. Despite this well-advertised need for demand reduction, UK home energy use represented over 28% of total CO₂e emissions in 2017 (BEIS, 2018). Currently, little in the way of policy support exists to reduce these emissions. This puts a large amount of onus on the individual to undertake changes, and current goals are not being met. Part of the reason for this issue revolves around public knowledge of how best to save energy, or Energy Literacy (DeWaters & Powers, 2011, 2013; Cotton et al., 2016), as well as public barriers to undertaking energy-saving behaviours (Lorenzoni et al., 2007; Attari et al., 2010). This study presents data from a nationally representative UK survey as part of my PhD thesis, and will discuss current levels of energy literacy in the UK, barriers and motivations for energy efficiency and demand reduction initiatives, public interaction with energy actors and associated trust, and demographic variation. This paper aims to advocate not only for the need for more effective policy to support householders in their decision-making, but also the need for a tailored approach to reducing carbon emissions from the domestic housing sector. Further, a brief assessment of current UK domestic energy policy will highlight areas for improvement in the interface between policy, supply chains, and public understanding of energy use.

Two frequently applied theories that explain prevention behavior are the Protection Motivation Theory (Rogers, 1975) and the Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, 1966). The basic idea behind these theories is that the perceived likelihood of a risk and its perceived consequences create a motivation for self-protection, and a cost-benefit analysis results in taking action or not. The suggested determinants (vulnerability, severity, costs, effort, and effectiveness) have been extensively tested in various areas of prevention behavior research. We now test them in the area of domestic risk prevention.

In this paper we want to highlight an issue that has been overlooked or at least neglected throughout the literature. Suppose that one finds that, say, the perceived effectiveness of a behavior correlates with the likelihood of performing prevention behavior, as many researchers have found. What does this mean? It could mean on the one hand that persons who find this behavior more effective than other persons, perform the behavior more often (an effect “between persons”). Or, it could mean that for a given person, prevention behaviors that are perceived as more effective than other behaviors are more likely to be performed (an effect “within persons”). Although the literature on PMT and HBM does not make this distinction, the (mostly implicit) general argument that is being used is on the within person level. Although the general argument is on the within-person level, correlational studies perform analyses solely between-persons. Whether the effects are primarily within- or between-persons has important implications for initiatives directed at influencing prevention behavior. When effects are mainly between persons and hence depend on personal characteristics, it would make sense to direct prevention initiatives at specific target groups. However, when effects are mainly between behaviors within persons, it would make sense to influence the general public, and try to change a person’s perception of a specific behavior (relative to other behaviors).

We use survey research (n=263) in which we ask participants to indicate whether they perform a set of prevention behaviors and to evaluate these behaviors on the relevant determinants. Our results show that all determinants influence domestic prevention behavior (as hypothesized). However, given our multi-level design, we can separate the within and between person effects, and find that the bulk of the effects run within persons (between behaviors), not between persons. We discuss our findings and conclude with implications how to influence people to increase their domestic risk prevention behavior.

In the evolving ‘post-fact’ society that we live in today, it is becoming progressively more important to understand how to draw from experience, in striving to improve the risk communication that is utilised (Loftstedt,2005). Human health and the exposure we have to hazardous air pollutants, is something that we, as a society, expect the government agencies around us to inform the public, when there may be a substantial hazard present. The need and importance of transparency and cross-agency communications can help to progress public trust with governmental agencies when establishing the level of risks.

Through drawing on a case study of the Tacoma Smelter, Washington State U.S, which ceased operations in 1985 and subsequently the American Smelting and refining company (ASARCO) filled for bankruptcy. Although adverse health had been recorded in 1951 (Snegireff & Lombard, 1951), no standard was set federally until the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was pursued by congress to set a standard in 1978. Interviews helped to understand how the correspondence of the human health carcinogen could be improved in the future, whilst considering the past. Notably, I have been able to recognise how multi-agency correspondence across sites with similar hazardous contamination could work together in delivering the best possible communication in this ‘post-fact’ society that we live in today.

Specifically, in my research I have understood the importance of top-down communication, as well as its failures, and ways that It could be improved to help secure its longevity. In understanding the industrial age and the dependence that many communities had on such polluting industries, I was able to draw on how this may have impacted on what was communicated and the timing of it. This case was particularly interesting, as it came at a time when there was denial by industry of the hazardous chemicals that they were exposing the workforce and surrounding population to. Owing to the stronghold that companies, such as the American Smelting and Refining Company had on a small town like Ruston, WA. The study area, although small, because of only being for a undergraduate dissertation, demonstrated an urgency of building correspondence that could evolve with society, so that the legacy of the area was not lost.

There has been much research regarding the perceptions, preferences, behaviour, and responses of people exposed to flooding and other natural hazards. Cross-sectional surveys have been the predominant method applied in such research. While cross-sectional data can provide a snapshot of a respondent’s behaviour and perceptions, it cannot be assumed that the respondent’s perceptions are constant over time. As a result, many important research questions relating to dynamic processes, such as changes in risk perceptions, adaptation behaviour, and resilience cannot be fully addressed by cross-sectional surveys. To overcome these shortcomings, there has been a call for developing longitudinal (or panel) datasets in research on natural hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks. However, experiences with implementing longitudinal surveys in the flood risk domain, which pose distinct methodological challenges, are largely lacking. The key problems are sample recruitment, attrition rate, and attrition bias. We present a review of the few existing longitudinal surveys in the flood risk domain. In addition, we investigate the potential attrition bias and attrition rates in a panel data set of flood-affected households in Germany. We find little potential for attrition bias to occur. High attrition rates across longitudinal survey waves are the larger concern. A high attrition rate rapidly depletes the longitudinal sample. To overcome high attrition, longitudinal data should be collected as part of a multi-sector partnership to allow for sufficient resources to implement sample retention strategies. If flood-specific panels are developed, different sample retention strategies should be applied and evaluated in future research to understand how much-needed longitudinal surveying techniques can be successfully applied to the study of individuals threatened by flooding.

Hazardous materials (hazmat), aka dangerous goods, are referred to substances that can cause harm to people, property, and the environment. In North America, a significant portion of hazmat shipments is transported over the railroad network. Besides pipeline capacity shortfall, favorable safety statistics have made rail a growing mode for hazmat transport. For instance, Canadian railroads carried over 44 million tons of hazmat in 2015, which shows a remarkable increase from 29 million tons in 2006. Although rail is one of the safest modes for hazmat transport, the risk of catastrophic events such as the tragic event in Lac Mégantic (Quebec, Canada) in 2013, does exist. In this study, we investigate emergency response planning as a risk management technique, aimed at alleviating the harmful consequences associated with rail hazmat incidents.

We characterize a potential incident scenario by location, hazmat class (type), and release volume; based on these scenario-specific parameters, a composite risk measure is calculated that accounts for incident probability as well as incident consequences. Adopting a mathematical modeling approach, our objectives include locating emergency response facilities and identifying the type and number of equipment packages to stockpile at each facility. Because of the uncertainty associated with location, class, and release volume of hazmat incidents, we decided to use two-stage stochastic programming, which is cited as a general-purpose method to deal with uncertainty in model parameters. The first stage accounts for the strategic decisions i.e. facility location and equipment acquisition, and the second stage is related to the tactical/operational decisions i.e. resource allocation. We developed a heuristic solution technique to efficiently solve the problem over part of the Canadian railroad network, i.e., Ontario. Our study results provide specific recommendations on where to locate emergency response facilities and what equipment packages to stockpile at each facility. The tabular and visualized results from this study would provide railroad companies and policy makers with useful insights that support the development of effective emergency response plans.