RISK newsletter:
250 Participate in SRA-Europe Meeting

Source: The Society for Risk Analysis' RISK newsletter, Third Quarter 1995

Featuring the theme "Risk Analysis and Management in a Global Economy," the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis-Europe drew more than 250 participants from 30 countries. The Center of Technology Assessment in Baden-Württemberg organized the conference, which was held May 21-25 in Stuttgart, Germany.

"The conference succeeded in bringing people from different disciplines and professional backgrounds together," stated conference organizer Ortwin Renn in a special report to the RISK newsletter. Renn, a director of the Center of Technology Assessment in Baden-Württemberg, also said that most participants switched sessions from one track to another and searched for dialogue beyond disciplinary boundaries.

Attendees presented 120 technical papers and 48 posters in the following four thematic tracks:

· The contributions of professional risk analysis to risk management and policy implementation in Central and Eastern Europe: Bridging the gap between Western and Eastern practice. Chair: Adrian Gheorghe of ETH Zürich.

· Insurance of environmental and industrial risks: New challenges for risk prevention and risk management. Chair: Wolfgang Gottschling of Württembergische Versicherung AG in Germany.

· Risk perception, communication, and mediation: Coping with diversity and plural values. Chair: Peter Wiedemann of the Research Center Jülich.

· New developments in risk analysis: Case studies and experiences in the environmental, ecological, food, safety, transportation, and other risk-related fields. Chair: Hans-Joachim Seidel of the University of Ulm in Germany.

1995 Award Recipient

At the opening reception, the 1995 SRA-Europe Distinguished Scientific Work Award was presented to Ben Ale of the National Institute for Health and Environment in Bilthoven, Netherlands. He was cited for his pioneering work in applying probabilistic risk assessment methods to the petrochemical industry.

Speakers

Speakers at the opening sessions included Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Erwin Teufel, who reviewed prominent risk-related policies in Germany and discussed the gap between rich and poor countries in actual exposure to environmental risks. Elisabeth Paté-Cornell, president of the international Society for Risk Analysis and a professor of industrial engineering and engineering management at Stanford University, talked about learning across the disciplines and stated that even more powerful assessment tools are needed to treat uncertainties in risk analysis. She expressed hope that the problems posed by traditional risk analysis could be addressed worldwide. Outgoing SRA-Europe President Detlef Müller of Proctor and Gamble in Germany expressed his hope that the meeting would help to bring together risk analysis efforts in Western and Eastern Europe.

Introducing the four tracks were Liviu Muresan, president of the European Institute for Risk, Security, and Communication Management in Bucharest, Romania, who spoke on the urgent need for Western specialists to assist Eastern European countries in cleaning up toxic materials and nuclear wastes left at former military installations; Georg Mehl, chairman of the insurance company Württembergische Versicherung AG in Germany, who discussed the role of insurances for environmental risk management, warning that insurers could not assume the burden of safety control; Josée van Eijndhoven, director of the Rathenau Institute for Technology Assessment in the Netherlands, who reviewed ongoing studies on risk perception and communication, emphasizing that risk behavior cannot be modeled on the basis of technological data alone; and Bertrand Munier, director of the Research Group of Risk, Information and Decision at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in France, who explained the opportunities of using fuzzy logic in risk assessment and said that uncertainty coefficients can now be modeled with higher reliability.

Plenary speaker Hans Allgeier, director of the E.C. Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Spain, focused on energy systems and communication technologies. He advised risk managers to develop more resilient strategies in regulating technologies since the future remains undetermined and it is impossible to foresee all negative consequences of any new technology.

Other meeting highlights included a report on the interdisciplinary project Risk and Safety of Technological Systems conducted by the Swiss Institute of Technology, and a panel discussion on risk communication, in which one panelist concluded that communication among communication specialists must be successful before communication with the public will be.

Eastern and Central Europe

"Many participants were particularly interested in the sessions dealing with risk problems in Central and Eastern Europe," Renn stated.

Forty invited speakers from the two regions reported on the environmental problems that their countries face in making the transition to a market economy. Topics included the effects of the Chernobyl accident and the health problems induced by environmental pollution and rapid lifestyle changes. "Most interesting was the finding that mortality was highly correlated with country or region, but less so with actual levels of pollution or other environmental factors," Renn stated.

Future Plans

Future plans for SRA-Europe include finalizing plans to publish a journal and increasing communication by using the Internet, says the section's new president Ray Kemp, who began his term at the meeting (see page 2).

The section is also planning its 1996 Annual Meeting, to be held June 3-5 at the University of Surrey in Guildford, United Kingdom. The conference director, Ragnar Löfstedt of the university's Centre for Environmental Strategy, has scheduled a conference planning session on September 7 at the university, which will be followed by a meeting of the section's executive committee on September 8.

President Kemp will attend the 1995 SRA Annual Meeting in Hawaii and co-chair the symposium "Nuclear Waste Facility Siting: Country and Cultural Comparisons of Conflict and Resolution" with SRA-Europe's Past President Marc Poumadère of Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in France (see Member News) and member Claire Mays of Institut SYMLOG in France, who is organizing the symposium.

SRA-Europe Contact: Ray Kemp, Director, Risk Management, EnTec UK Ltd., 17 Angel Gate, City Road, London EC1V 2PT, United Kingdom, telephone (44) 171 278 8338, fax (44) 171 833 9090.

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