Objective
Current risk management research and practice is fragmented by subject and by level of decision-making. Risks to our social fabric violate boundaries between nation states, government and communities. Trust is fundamental for risk interpretation of the public between "real" and "perceived" risks. Limitations of risk science, the importance and difficulty of maintaining trust, and the socio-political nature of risk mean that a new approach is required: More public participation in risk assessments and decision-making is needed in order to make the decision process more democratic, improve the relevance/quality of technical analysis and increase the legitimacy and public acceptance of political decisions.
The main objective of MIDIR is to develop a resilience and risk governance concept based on existing research and an accompanying management tool. In this context, the material goal "resiliency" and the more procedural approach "risk governance will be combined through an interdisciplinary approach that defines a reasonable path (risk governance) towards the material goal of creating resilient communities.
The new concept will be tested in the real decision-making settings of existing risk management systems by the example of two emerging risks with a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity: risks related to criminals under hospital treatment order and risks related to health due to e-commerce. Implementing the new risk governance concept will test its applicability in praxis and lead to new, innovative knowledge about dealing with these risks in Europe.
An accompanying management tool will monitor and evaluate the process over the whole project time providing detailed and comparable information about results. Bringing risk governance to policy and decision-making and other societal actors by networking and disseminating the new concept will complete the co-ordination activities.
Fields of science
Keywords
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
FP6-2005-SCIENCE-AND-SOCIETY-14
See other projects for this call