ABOUT IRG-PROJECT

Recently, the global risk community has realized that a new set of risk issues will become increasingly relevant in the future: issues of Integrated Risk Management and Governance.

An instructive example is given by the 2008 combination of increasing food as well as oil prices with the economic slow-down triggered by the crisis in the American mortgage market and the risks of global climate change. The combination of these different kinds of risks makes it difficult to deal with any of them in isolation. Furthermore, current risk governance procedures make it equally difficult to address them in an integrated manner.

As a consequence, the Chinese National Committee for IHDP (CNC-IHDP), supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China, has proposed to the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) to develop a new core science project on Integrated Risk Governance.

To lead this initiative on IRG, an international scientific planning committee (SPC-IRG) has been established. The committee is chaired by Professor Shi Peijun from Beijing Normal University (BNU) and Professor Carlo C. Jaeger from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the European Climate Forum (ECF).