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The COVID 19 crisis and geopolitical ruptures of recent years have highlighted the importance of operations and supply chain management (OSCM) to firms and society. How do OSCM executives make decisions under uncertainty, and how do they balance the competing needs of various stakeholders? The behavioral agency model (BAM), which has been widely used in the management literature, focuses on the executive as the unit of analysis, like the behavioral science research in which it is embedded;by contrast, much of the supply chain risk management research has examined risk at the level of the firm. We review BAM literature and its core constructs, refine its original predictions, identify OSCM executive decision contexts that could take advantage of BAM, and highlight research opportunities using BAM. We aim to provide a platform for further risk research applying BAM in the domain of OSCM executive decision-making.

Over 48,000 people died by suicide in 2018 in the United States, and more than 25 times that number attempted suicide. Research on suicide has focused much more on risk factors and adverse outcomes than on protective factors and more healthy functioning. Consequently, little is known regarding relatively positive long-term psychological adaptation among people who attempt suicide and survive. We recommend inquiry into the phenomenon of long-term well-being after nonfatal suicide attempts, and we explain how this inquiry complements traditional risk research by (a) providing a more comprehensive understanding of the sequelae of suicide attempts, (b) identifying protective factors for potential use in interventions and prevention, and (c) contributing to knowledge and public education that reduce the stigma associated with suicide-related behaviors.

The knowledge base for cruise holidays is conceptually underdeveloped and narrowly focused on health and safety and environmental concerns. This critical review of risk research in relation to ocean cruising identifies knowledge gaps revealing the significance of factors such as financial, performance, time-loss, opportunity, functional, social and psychological risk. This review calls for a wider conceptualisation of risk that moves beyond an emphasis on physical risk. A deeper understanding of risk in ocean cruising contributes to cruise research and to the wider discourse in tourism and risk studies, and provides significant empirical and conceptual insights for future research.

As the vice president of Advanced Concepts & Technology for Raytheon Intelligence & Space, Bradford Tousley leads an innovative technology incubator inside Raytheon Technologies, which focusses on high-reward/high-risk disruptive technologies for the defense industry. In this interview he discusses the history of Raytheon Technologies and some of the advancements, including quantum computing, ARAKNID, DyNAMO, directed energy weapons, digital engineering, and synthetic biology, which will enable US forces and allies to maintain full-spectrum dominance in the battlespace in the near future. See video at https://youtu.be/8BGtJSISKUs.

Inter-agency collaboration is a well-established, yet very difficult process in public governance. Despite the fact that it is often unsuccessful, collaboration risk research is still undeveloped and the impact of this risk on the effectiveness of joint activities is still underestimated. This issue is of particular significance in public safety networks, where inter-agency collaboration processes are conducted under the conditions of the complexity and uncertainty. For this reason, the article is intended to: (1) identify factors of collaboration risk in public safety networks, (2) determine the impact of individual risk factors on inter-agency collaboration outcomes, (3) identify the relationship between risk factors of inter-agency collaboration in public safety networks, and (4) analyse the growth of this risk in public safety networks. These purposes were achieved using the Systematic Literature Review based on PRISMA Group methodology and Interpretive Structural Modelling together with MICMAC analysis. The applied research approach also has some limitations resulting from the number of experts. However, the results obtained allow us to better understand issues of inter-agency collaboration risk in public safety networks. They identify key collaboration risk factors, such as inappropriate collaboration rules and inadequate allocation of tasks and resources. In consequence, they indicate risk symptoms that are worth keeping track of in order to prevent collaboration ineffectiveness.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster has raised the importance on the reliability and risk research of the spent fuel pool (SFP), including the risk of internal events, fire, external hazards and so on. From a safety point of view, the low decay heat of the spent fuel assemblies and large water inventory in the SFP has made the accident progress goes very slow, but a large number of fuel assemblies are stored inside the spent fuel pool and without containment above the SFP building, it still has an unignored risk to the safety of the nuclear power plant. In this paper, a standardized approach for performing a holistic and comprehensive evaluation approach of the SFP risk based on the probabilistic safety analysis (PSA) method has been developed, including the Level 1 SFP PSA and Level 2 SFP PSA and external hazard PSA. The research scope of SFP PSA covers internal events, internal flooding, internal fires, external hazards and new risk source-fuel route risk is also included. The research will provide the risk insight of Spent Fuel Pool operation, and can help to make recommendation for the prevention and mitigation of SFP accidents which will be applicable for the SFP configuration risk management.

On a global scale, from 2005 to 2019, there were 275 high-magnitude, low-frequency disasters that involved 14,172 fatalities and four million affected people. Similar patterns have taken place during longer periods of time in recent decades. This paper aims to analyse the contribution of the international landslide research community to disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management in reference to the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in a literature review. The first section notes the relevance of disaster risk research contributions for the implementation of initiatives and strategies concerning disaster risk management. The second section highlights background information and current applications of drones in the field of hazards and risk. The methodology, which included a systematic peer review of journals in the ISI Web of Science and SCOPUS, was presented in the third section, where the results include analyses of the considered data. This study concludes that most current scholarly efforts remain rooted in hazards and post-disaster evaluation and response. Future landslide disaster risk research should be transdisciplinary in order to strengthen participation of the various relevant stakeholders in contributing to integrated disaster risk management at local, subnational, national, regional and global levels.

Competitiveness has always been the basis for building a market economy. In modern conditions, this quality should also be enjoyed by public sector institutions. Pre-education that takes place in the public sector of the economy, which mainly includes educational institutions, is aimed at creating a competitive environment among educational institutions, in which they must fight for victory in the competition to complete a state task, for applicants, for reputation, and, ultimately, for budget funding. And in this situation, various management systems, often borrowed from the commercial sphere of activity, come to the fore. One of these systems is the risk management system, which includes both the positive and negative nature of risk and its hybrid component in the modern interpretation. Existing risk management standards consider risk from these positions. Purpose of work it is a study of budget risks from the point of view of the process approach, assessment and relationship of the stages of the budget process and risks. The novelty of this work is the use of risk-based thinking to achieve the effectiveness of the quality management system of budget processes. Methods. The methodological apparatus of research on the stated problem is based on the methods of economic and comparative analysis, expert assessments. Results. The results of the study revealed a clear relationship and reflection of the main principles of the process approach in the budget process. In addition, it was determined that the budget process also has the characteristic key elements of the process approach. measures to prevent budget risks are taken jointly by the owner and participants in the budget process, using the necessary resources and following the relevant principles, while the coordinator, who is responsible for the coordinated work of participants in the process and ensures the safety and timely presentation of all potentially useful information, plays a key role in preventing and minimizing budget process risks.

The article considers the main approaches to risk research, which is a constant companion of human activity. It is shown that the process of forming the theoretical bases of risk occurred over a long period of time in all areas of social, humanitarian and natural knowledge, which led to the emergence of various risk-based concepts. The dynamics of the attitude to risk in different periods of human history is presented, which resulted in the emergence of a modern «risk society», in which risk is perceived as the reverse side of progress.

The affordability of property-level adaptation measures against flooding is crucial due to the movement toward integrated flood risk management, which requires the individuals threatened by flooding to actively manage flooding. It is surprising to find that affordability is not often discussed, given the important roles that affordability and social justice play regarding flood risk management. This article provides a starting point for investigating the potential rate of unaffordability of flood risk property-level adaptation measures across Europe using two definitions of affordability, which are combined with two different affordability thresholds from within flood risk research. It uses concepts of investment and payment affordability, with affordability thresholds based on residual income and expenditure definitions of unaffordability. These concepts, in turn, are linked with social justice through fairness concerns, in that, all should have equal capability to act, of which affordability is one avenue. In doing so, it was found that, for a large proportion of Europe, property owners generally cannot afford to make one-time payment of the cost of protective measures. These can be made affordable with installment payment mechanisms or similar mechanisms that spread costs over time. Therefore, the movement toward greater obligations for flood-prone residents to actively adapt to flooding should be accompanied by socially accessible financing mechanisms.

A growing awareness of potential global catastrophes has recently given increased attention to the topic of existential risks. To date, there is still very limited consensus on the definition of existential risk, the likelihood of those risks, and their ethical implications. To achieve more clarity, it is proposed here that extinction risks should be discerned more clearly from other aspects of existential risks. Nuclear war is taken as a prime example to illustrate an extinction risk and to discuss humanity’s resilience to such threats. It is concluded that it is unlikely that a nuclear war would lead to the end of the human species, despite the unprecedented damage it might cause. Further, some of the ethical aspects of longtermism and the communication of existential risks are discussed., Intergenerational Justice Review, Vol. 8 No. 1 (2022): Existential and unknown risks for future generations (I)

The need to prevent possible adverse environmental health impacts resulting from synthetic biology (SynBio) products is widely acknowledged in both the SynBio risk literature and the global regulatory community. To-date, however, discussions of potential risks of SynBio products have been largely speculative, and the limited attempts to characterize the risks of SynBio products have been non-uniform and entirely qualitative. As the SynBio discipline continues to accelerate and bring forth novel, highly-engineered life forms, a standardized risk assessment framework will become critical for ensuring that the environmental risks of these products are characterized in a consistent, reliable, and objective manner that incorporates all SynBio-unique risk factors. In their current forms, established risk assessment frameworks – including those that address traditional genetically modified organisms – fall short of the features required of this standard framework. To address this gap, we propose the Quantitative Risk Assessment Method for Synthetic Biology Products (QRA-SynBio) – an incremental build on established risk assessment methodologies that supplements traditional paradigms with the SynBio risk factors that are currently absent, and necessitates quantitative analysis for more transparent and objective risk characterizations. We demonstrate through a hypothetical case study that the proposed framework facilitates defensible quantification of the environmental risks of SynBio products in both foreseeable and hypothetical use scenarios. Additionally, we show how the quantitative nature of the proposed method can promote increased experimental investigation into the true likelihood of hazard and exposure parameters and highlight the most sensitive parameters where uncertainty should be reduced, ultimately leading to more targeted SynBio risk research and yielding more precise characterizations of risk.

Studies are skewed towards resilient places and people: improve data, metrics, inclusion and more. Studies are skewed towards resilient places and people: improve data, metrics, inclusion and more.

Despite rapidly growing knowledge of the clinical high-risk (CHR) state for psychosis, the vast majority of case-control studies have relied on healthy volunteers as a reference point for drawing inferences about the CHR construct. Researchers have long recognized that results generated from this design are limited by significant interpretive concerns, yet little attention has been given to how these concerns affect the growing field of CHR research. We argue that overreliance on healthy control participants in CHR research threatens the validity of inferences concerning group differences, hinders advances in understanding the development of psychosis, and limits clinical progress. We suggest that the combined use of healthy and help-seeking (i.e., psychiatric) controls is a necessary step for the next generation of CHR research. We then evaluate methods for help-seeking control studies, identify the available CHR studies that have used such designs, discuss select findings in this literature, and offer recommendations for research.

The 2018 Sulawesi earthquake (Mw 7.5) and tsunami destroyed many buildings and caused more than 3300 fatalities in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Damage reports and satellite images from Palu City indicated severe tsunami impacts to buildings and lifelines infrastructure within 300 m from the coastline. Seven-weeks after the earthquake a field survey was carried out in Palu City to measure tsunami flow depths and record damage levels for buildings, roads and electricity infrastructure. Above ground level tsunami flow depths measured at 371 building sites ranged from 0.1 to 3.65 m, with a 1.05 m mean and 0.55 m standard deviation. The survey team also recorded attributes and damage levels for 463 buildings, 7.9 km of road and 455 utility poles. We observed that non-engineered ‘light timber’ and ‘lightly reinforced concrete’ construction frame buildings were highly susceptible to ‘non-structural’ component damage when tsunami flow depths respectively exceed 0.4 m and 1 m above the first finished floor level, while unrepairable or complete building damage was regularly observed when flow depths exceeded 1.2 m. Only non-structural component damage was observed for engineered ‘reinforced concrete’ buildings. While tsunami flow depth traces could not be measured for affected road and utility pole components, hazard intensity parameters can be obtained from tsunami inundation maps to estimate the conditions contributing to observed damage levels. The information presented herein forms an important evidence base to support future tsunami hazard and risk research in Indonesia.

This special issue of the Journal of Risk Research presents papers developed by some of the scholars who participated in an AHRC-funded network, ‘Fate, Luck, and Fortune: Narratives of Envi...

The agricultural situation in India has gone through several distresses occurring from both natural and socio-politico-economic stressors. Though an emphasis has been given in the country to develop and promote adaptation strategies, it requires precise, comprehensive, and generalized knowledge regarding agricultural risks and vulnerabilities. With this motive, the present study systematically reviews the current state of research on India’s agricultural risk and vulnerabilities (n = 97), its progress, and prospects over the past two decades. The review explicitly focuses on the trends, characteristics, practices, outcomes, and policy significance to broaden the potential course. Results suggest that there are significant spatial, temporal, and thematic differences in agricultural vulnerability and risk researches. Considering the exposures, most of the studies prioritize climate-induced external stressors over the internal ones. Studies are still being practiced traditionally by neglecting the nexus of various physical and socio-politico-economic attributes of agriculture. Consequently, the inherent structural drivers, such as class, caste, gender, and economic disparity, still stimulate agricultural risks and vulnerabilities. Considering the future adversities and the heterogeneity of India’s biophysical and environmental conditions along with diversified socio-politico-economic aspects, we emphasize the process-based systemic, multi-scalar, and multi-stressor agricultural vulnerability and risk research through cohesive theoretical, conceptual, and analytical approaches. Additionally, we developed a combined vulnerability and risk assessment framework, which can generally be applied to any system, including agriculture.

The EUropean FOod Risk Assessment (EU‐FORA) Fellowship work programme ‘Livestock Health and Food Chain Risk Assessment’, funded by EFSA was proposed by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), UK. A scientist with a PhD in Food Science was selected to work within the Biomathematics and Risk Research group, under the guidance of a senior risk assessor. The programme consisted of four different modules that covered a wide range of aspects related to risk assessment (RA). The aims, activities and conclusions obtained during the year are described in this article. The learning‐by‐doing approach in RA allowed the fellow to discover a broad pool of methodologies, tools and applications while developing his own knowledge in RA, as well as gaining scientific network for future collaborations in the field.

Education risk research has become the requirement of the current national security situation, the reference of the current situation of education development and the responsibility of rich theory. The research on college education risk is of great significance, but it is still in its infancy in China. This paper aims to further discuss how to identify risks, analyze risks qualitatively and quantitatively by referring to the mature risk management methods of other industries and starting from the analysis and research on the characteristics and types of educational risks, and propose feasible risk coping strategies and prevention mechanisms.

Increasing antibiotic resistance across the world seems to reflect a failure of research and development (R&D) to keep pace with societally important disaster risks. This article uses the example of steadily increasing antibiotic resistance to question whether current R&D systems are able to timeously deal with certain societally important research problems. A review and discussion of new theoretical developments is offered, to suggest how novel technologies might be applied to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health-related disaster risk research. This article seeks to make a conceptual contribution through a critical review and synthesis of novel theory. Theoretical propositions are derived from conceptual analysis. Four key challenges are related to the derived propositions, to derive guidelines for how the disaster risk management process can be supplemented to improve its near real-time research capability. The theoretical propositions derived here relate to certain overarching challenges facing disaster risk research. The theoretical arguments made in this article seek to offer a heuristic perspective that may be useful to those seeking to apply novel technologies in disaster risk research to address societally important research problems such as antibiotic resistance. This research identifies evidence of the failure of the contemporary research system to solve problems like antibiotic resistance. On the basis of a synthesis of novel literature and theory, conclusions suggest certain useful avenues for the improvement of the research process. Urgency is recommended because of mounting societal costs of slow research responses to societal problems.

This paper comprehensively analyses various risks of the blockchain technology in circulation, including wallet security risks, code vulnerability, risks on the validity of the consensus mechanism, Hash algorithm risk, 51% attack risk and exchange risk. At present, with the vigorous development of the blockchain technology and the absence of government and legal supervision, users can only rely on themselves to fully identify risks to effectively avoid loss.

The concept of ultrahigh risk (UHR) has reached maturity and is now an established part of the clinical and research field in psychosis. In this chapter, we discuss the validity of the UHR concept as a predictor of psychosis and suggest possibilities for increasing its utility and accuracy. We discuss the gap in current treatment options primarily focused on psychosis prevention, while other prominent and persistent symptoms in the UHR population still lack adequate interventions. Finally, we discuss risk in a broader sense, including childhood and drug use. We recognize accomplishments by pioneers in this field and propose areas for further focus in the future.

Recent research on risk diversification is characterized by a strict dependence of risk on the natural environment. At present, the relationship between humans and the environment is the most important subject of consideration, and any changes taking place in the environment are the subject of an increased interest in it. Indeed, the concept of risk and decision-making in conditions of uncertainty about future events is still important, but in the mainstream, the relationship of risk with the environment in which humans live and treating the risk from the point of view of the global perspective becomes more important. Contemporary risk management is therefore characterized by increased social awareness and multilayered issues, while at the same time, the research is interdisciplinary. Despite this awareness, it has not yet been possible to develop a single risk research concept or a universal definition of risk. We can safely say that it is just the opposite. Risk research has to a large extent become an area of formulating contradictory research paradigms and contradictory goals and assessments. This does not mean, however, that in a few years this will not lead to positive solutions in this area, both for the benefit of humans and the environment in which they live.

Bencana longsor merupakan salah satu bencana yang sering melanda Indonesia. Data yang dihimpun dari BPBD Kota Bogor, menunjukkan pula bahwa kejadian longsor menempati urutan pertama dari 6 jenis bencana yang ada di Kota Bogor; pada tahun 2017 terdapat 179 kejadian longsor (40.5%) dari 442 kejadian bencana yang tercatat. Guna mendukung program pembangunan di kota ini, penelitian risiko longsor sangat diperlukan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menilai dan memetakan risiko longsor Kota Bogor dan merumuskan rekomendasi mitigasinya. Metode yang digunakan adalah Multi Criteria Evaluation dimana bobot dan skor dari setiap parameter diperoleh dari Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Hasil yang diperoleh menunjukkan bahwa tingkat kerawanan dan bahaya longsor tertinggi luasannya terdapat di Kecamatan Bogor Selatan, hal ini sesuai dengan kondisi landform yang ada di wilayah tersebut, dimana 60.5% wilayahnya merupakan bentuklahan lereng bawah kerucut vulkanik denudasional, tebing sungai, serta lembah dan teras alluvial. Namun demikian untuk risiko tertinggi luasannya terdapat di Kecamatan Bogor Utara. Hal ini dikarenakan dominasi penggunaan lahan permukiman dan jumlah penduduk yang tinggi, sehingga faktor kerentanan menjadi indikator naiknya nilai risiko. Untuk Kota Bogor yang dominan dengan penggunaan lahan permukiman, arahan mitigasi yang direkomendasikan meliputi perlakuan teknik sipil, teknik vegetatif, dan teknik sosial pada kelas risiko sedang dan tinggi. Kecamatan Bogor Selatan dalam hal ini merupakan kecamatan yang paling luas areanya untuk diterapkan tindakan mitigasi.

In this chapter, we relate our analysis of risk to what has sometimes been called ‘the material turn’ in the social sciences. We introduce some insights from this line of thinking that we consider important for an intersectional analysis of risk. Although it has not been elaborated upon in previous chapters, these bear some relation to the conceptual developments discussed so far, for example post structuralism and dualism. Following a brief overview of the materialist turn and how it contributes to our own framework, we consider the influence of new materialism on risk research. Returning to intersectional risk theory, we use different examples to illustrate what rejection of the dualist epistemology means (and does not mean) from our perspective.

Anxiety symptoms in childhood and adolescence can have a long-term negative impact on mental and physical health. Although studies have shown dysregulation of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis is associated with anxiety disorders, it is unclear how and in what direction children's experiences of anxiety symptoms, which include physiological and cognitive–emotional dimensions, impact the functioning of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis over time. We hypothesized that higher physiological symptoms would be contemporaneously associated with hypercortisolism, whereas cognitive–emotional symptoms would be more chronic, reflecting traitlike stability, and would predict hypocortisolism over time. One hundred twenty children from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Research Project were followed in successive data collection waves approximately 3 years apart from childhood through midadolescence. Between ages 10–12 and 13–15, children completed self-report questionnaires of anxiety symptoms and provided salivary cortisol samples at 2-hr intervals over 2 consecutive days. The results from hierarchical linear modeling showed that higher physiological symptoms were concurrently associated with hypercortisolism, involving cortisol levels that remained elevated over the day. In contrast, longitudinal results over the 3 years between data collection waves showed that chronic worry and social concerns predicted hypocortisolism, showing a low and blunted diurnal cortisol profile. These results have implications for broadening our understanding of the links between anxiety, the stress response system, and health across the course of development.

Empirical research aiming to elicit risk attitudes faces problems of within- and between-method inconsistencies, which reduce the explanatory and predictive power of risk research. In this paper, we investigate the relevance of context and task involvement on these inconsistencies. Our analysis is based on a sample of 244 German agricultural sciences students, which were performing an iterative multiple price list (iMPL) and a simple self-assessment question on risk preferences. We find that using a real life and subject context specific (here, agricultural) framing of the iMPL is leading to fewer within- and between-method inconsistencies. This is due to the fact that contextual framing has an increasing effect on task involvement (proxied with the time spent in the iMPL). Additionally, we find that contextual framing triggers the role of subjects’ context involvement (proxied using an indicator for students’ involvement in the agricultural domain). More specifically, both higher task and context involvement are found to decrease within-method inconsistency in the iMPL task. While also between-method inconsistency is decreasing in subjects’ task involvement, we found no effect of context involvement. In conclusion, our results suggest that by framing a risk elicitation method according to the subjects’ specific context, involvement can be triggered and inconsistencies and misspecifications can be reduced.

There exist rare researches about economic risk in sectoral level, which is significantly important for risk prewarning. This paper employed status coefficient to measure the symmetry of economic subnetwork, which is negatively correlated with sectoral risk. Then, we do empirical research in both cross section and time series dimensions. In cross section dimension, we study the correlation between sectoral status coefficient and sectoral volatility, earning rate and Sharpe ratio respectively in the year 2015. Next, in the perspective of time series, we first investigate the correlation change between sectoral status coefficient and annual total output from 1997 to 2015. Then, we divide the 71 sectors in America into agriculture, manufacturing, services and government, compare the trend terms of average sectoral status coefficients of the four industries and illustrate the causes behind it. We also find obvious abnormality in the sector of housing. At last, this paper puts forward some suggestions for the federal government.

Resilience has become an important concept in safety and risk research and applications. There are many definitions, but the fundamental idea is that resilience has to do with the ability of a system to sustain or restore its functionality and performance following a change in the condition of the system (referred to as an event). Describing or measuring the degree of resilience is challenging as it is not obvious what events should be considered; also unknown types of events occurring need to be taken into account. Considerable efforts have been made to understand and describe the resilience concept and its relationship to risk, and the purpose of the present paper is to contribute to this work by arguing that to analyse and manage resilience, risk considerations and assessments can provide useful input. Resilience management is not depending on risk considerations and assessments to be effective, but could benefit from such considerations and assessments if properly conducted. They need to extend beyond traditional quantitative risk assessments; broader qualitative or semi-quantitative risk considerations and assessments are needed which highlight uncertainties and the knowledge and strength of knowledge that the uncertainty judgments are based on.

We investigate the influence of providing expected lottery results to experiment participants in two common risk attitude elicitation tasks. In a between-subject design, either the Holt and Laury task or the Eckel and Grossman task is carried out by a sample of 208 students. We find no significant effect of shown expected values on the risk attitude measured by the tasks. This result even holds true if we divide the experiment participants into specific sub-groups, i.e. female and male, or lower numeracy and higher numeracy participants. Furthermore, comprehension and processing time are not significantly influenced by presented expected values. Therefore, we conclude that providing information on expected values does not influence decision-making in tasks involving risk. This result indicates the robustness of elicited risk attitudes to variation in common experimental methods, and demonstrates that more information could be provided without creating bias in the results.

This special issue on the legacy of Ulrich Beck is aimed to stimulate reflection both on the specific uses to which Beck’s conceptual and theoretical apparatus can be put within risk studies and the wider significance of his academic project for the social sciences. In this end-piece, we draw out the key themes which surface in the different contributions relating to five particular areas: the nature of risk; advancements in methods; issues of non-knowledge and uncertainty; the development of cosmopolitan risk communities; and the situated character of individualization. We discuss the implications of the accounts contained in this special issue and reflect on the impact and influence of Beck’s sustained engagement with colleagues around the globe, concluding that the concepts and methods that Beck bequeathed the social sciences are set to live on and thrive.

While risk research normally understands risk as an entity that can be calculated using statistics and probabilities – and which therefore also can become the object of insurance technology – it is...

The ‘relational theory of risk,’ proposed by Asa Boholm and Herve Corvellec in Journal of Risk Research in 2011, offers a theory of human constructions of risk, a theory that has not only sociologi...

Controlled human infection (CHI) models have been developed for numerous pathogens in order to better understand disease processes and accelerate drug and vaccine testing. In the past, some researchers conducted highly controversial CHIs with vulnerable populations, including children. Ethical frameworks for CHIs now recommend vulnerable populations be excluded because they cannot consent to high risk research. In this paper we argue that CHI studies span a wide spectrum of benefit and risk, and that some CHI studies may involve minimal risk. The categorical exclusion of children from CHIs therefore departs from the standard approach to evaluating research risks, as international regulations and ethical guidance for pediatric research generally permit non-beneficial research with low risks. The paradigm in research ethics has also shifted from focusing on protecting vulnerable participants to recognizing that inclusion can be important as a matter of justice, providing new reasons to question this default exclusion of children from CHIs. Recognizing that pediatric CHIs can raise complex ethical issues and are easy to sensationalize in ways that may threaten the public's trust in research and sponsor institutions, we conclude by describing additional complexities that must be addressed before pediatric CHIs beyond licensed vaccine studies might be ethically acceptable.

LA RED (Network of Social Studies on the Prevention of Disasters in Latin America) has become the most influential group analysing disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its contributions have paved the way for a new way of understanding disasters, disaster risk, and their management, concerning: (i) that disasters are not natural, but socially constructed; (ii) the inherent nexus between disaster risk, development, and the environment; (iii) the significance of small- and medium-sized disasters and extensive and intensive risks; (iv) disaster risk management at the local level; and (v) integrated disaster risk research and the need for forensic investigations of disasters. As a result of this unification of challenges, intellectual communities of connected individuals were formed. Nonetheless, a focus on territorial management, exposure, and vulnerability remains a challenge for academia. In addition, the labyrinths of disaster risk governance must be disentangled by other stakeholders, such as national authorities, policymakers, and practitioners.

As rainfalls exceeding the designed level have increased, so has damage associated with pluvial flooding. Typhoon Hagibis, which swept Japan in 2019, left 140 municipalities in 15 prefectures scarred from flooding. The sewage networks damaged by the typhoon affected civic life by paralyzing urban functions, raising concerns in urban flood risk and management. Increases in heavy rainfall events associated with global climate change are expected to increase damage from pluvial flooding, thereby necessitating reviews of current urban flood risk management for the purpose of making further improvements against future threats. As we enter an era of frequent urban flooding, it is vitally important that we prepare for urban flood risk management by sharing scientific and technological knowledge among academics, private companies, and administrators. In this context, the current issue is a compilation of contemporary research studies in academia, technological advances in private companies, and practical applications in public administrations in Japan. The works include: the application of urban flood modeling in safe evacuation strategies, the assessment of economic loss, and the impact of climate change; state of the art technologies for urban flood management with the Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet Communication Technology (ICT), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), and the next generation of weather radars; and best practices for flood countermeasures, based on knowledge and experience from historical flooding and applied in prefectural governments and local municipalities. We are grateful to all the authors and reviewers who contributed to this special issue, and we hope that it may internationally enhance knowledge-exchange in preparation for growing urban flood risks.

Prof Ortwin Renn was one of my PhD supervisors at Clark University (along with Prof Robert Mitchell and Prof Roger Kasperson) where I studied risk research and energy policy between 1988 and 1992. ...

This article addresses a fundamental feature of risk discourse, namely, risk association, defined as the process whereby an agent establishes a connection between something, x, and the notion of risk. In addition, risk association can be defined as the result of such a process, i.e. an established connection between x and risk. A special case of risk association is when x is linked to harmful properties and thus is represented as a risk. Although fundamental to any analysis of socio-cognitive attention to risks, the process of risk association is often taken for granted in risk research. A layered model of risk association is presented taking linguistic practices, i.e. the use of words, as the point of departure. Accordingly, there are both central and more peripheral means of risk association. The central means include the morpheme ‘risk’. More peripheral means of risk association are close synonyms and antonyms of risk (e.g. ‘hazard’, ‘danger’, ‘safety’ and ‘security’) and other related words (e.g. ‘cri...

In recent years, in Vietnam, economy has been developing rapidly. To ensure rapid and sustainable economic growth, strong support from the energy sector is required. Governments in Vietnam have invested in numerous hydropower projects, many of which employ the EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contract. However, the EPC general contractors are facing many difficulties, resulting in schedule delays and considerable losses. This research is conducted to highlight the main risk factors in the delays of hydropower construction projects in Vietnam. The research employs the method of statistical calculations and risk analysis to obtain feedback from experts participating in similar projects. The research outcomes are as follows: identifying the risks that can cause delays in EPC hydroelectric construction projects in Vietnam; calculating and classifying the degree of impact of each risk to the progress of the construction. The practical significance of this study is to ensure the timely completion of projects, benefits for the investors, and the EPC general contractors.