Panel at AAAS meeting discussed Risk know-how and how to assess it

During a session today at the AAAS Annual Meeting, in Denver, USA, a panel looked at ways to assess community risk know-how internationally, and the scope for improvements in national and regional warning systems. Are hazard warnings such as global weather changes more accessible to some communities than others? Should more resource be directed to calculating risk information in different contexts so that people can act on it?   

The panel was moderated by Tracey Brown, director of Sense About Science, and included Kathy Ensor from Rice University, Mónica Feliú-Mójer from Ciencia Puerto Rico, and Olivia Jensen from the LRF Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk.

4 women standing in front of a banner that reads Towards science without walls.
Olivia Jensen, Tracey Brown, Mónica Feliú-Mójer and Kathy Ensor at the AAAS meeting.

“We are pulling people together from all over the world, to figure out a scale or key elements in a community that help it to assess warnings and reassurances and the net value of protective measures. That can be a matter of life and limb, of course, but having usable information is also a question of fairness. It should be a concern to every agency – whether it is urging action or prevention, providing information or sharing assessments – to consider whether the information is meaningful to people.”

Tracey Brown OBE, Director of Sense About Science
Tracey Brown introduces the session and the panelists at the AAAS meeting 2024.

“Taking collective decisions under uncertainty requires communities to understand complex trade-offs between risks, the costs and benefits of possible protective actions and how those costs are going to be borne by community members. To do this, communities may need support not just to interpret probabilistic information, but to design and implement decision-making processes that take account of all the aspects of risk that go beyond the numbers.”

Olivia Jensen, Deputy Director of Lloyd’s Register Foundation Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk (IPUR)

£1 million investment to aid global communities understand and navigate risks

The global safety charity Lloyd’s Register Foundation has pledged £918,070, over three years, to scale up and expand Risk Know-How, building an interactive platform to provide on-demand resources and tailored guidance to help community practitioners employ evidence about risks effectively.
Risk Know-How was launched by Sense about Science in 2021, in partnership with the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and with the support of LRF’s Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk (IPUR). The next phase of the project, which will be delivered by Sense about Science in partnership with IPUR will:

1. Provide a platform for community practitioners to get access to the resources and expert guidance which they need to resolve their risk communication challenges

2. Engage with risk information providers to develop information products that are useful and usable to the communities that need them, in line with the Risk Know-How framework.

3. Incorporate the Risk Know-How framework into international best practice guidelines for the provision of risk information, and into risk communication training. This includes developing a risk specific ISO standard, and incorporating the framework into UK Government guidance for civil servants.

4. Develop indicators to measure and track risk know-how at the individual and community level.
Investment in this ambitious new chapter for the initiative marks a renewed commitment from Lloyd’s Register Foundation and long-term partners Sense about Science and IPUR to increase the public’s understanding of risk and improve the quality of individual, business, and political decisions in the face of risk.

Our goal is to further shape the framework around the needs of practitioners, to embed it so that there is consistency in risk communication and training, and to put community needs centre of mind at the major information providers. We are delighted to be working with the Foundation, who have been admirably fearless in confronting what we really do and don’t know about the way communities use information about risks.

Tracey Brown OBE, Director of Sense about Science

Our vision to engineer a safer world has people at its heart. Everyone deserves to be safe and to feel safe. By ensuring that the relevant information is distributed to at-risk individuals and families effectively, and risk practitioners receive the training they need, the Risk Know-How programme will help improve lives in many vulnerable communities around the world. We’re excited to be supporting the expansion of the programme in partnership with Sense about Science.

Ruth Boumphrey, Chief Executive of Lloyd’s Register Foundation

Risk information can get lost in the gulf between the organisations that produce the information and the communities that need to use it. With Risk Know-How, we aim to bring the risk information providers closer to their users, to help these organisations understand the problems users face, and together design the formats and platforms that will allow communities to use information to take critical decisions.

Dr. Olivia Jensen, Lead Scientist at IPUR

Our work is dedicated to education for prevention and addressing gender-based violence in Chile. As a result of covering issues such as comprehensive sexual education, violence in digital spaces and gender and sexual diversity, we are highly exposed to attacks and hate speech, which have had a resurgence throughout Latin America and the world. In this sense, initiatives such as Risk Know-How are extremely valuable and a contribution to our actions, by creating a space to talk and get tools to address the risks. In addition, it will provide tools that can contribute to our daily work, such as making materials and information more accessible to the communities we work with.

Cecilia Ananías, Project Director at NGO Amaranta and one of the global risk practitioners involved in the Risk know-how project

Risk know-how discussed at Euro Science Open Forum (ESOF) 2022

Sense about Science Director Tracey Brown was joined by Meaghan Kall (UK HAS), Jan Marco Müller (European Commission), Katherina Schüller (STAT-UP) and Sarah Cumbers (Lloyds Register Foundation) to discuss the question: Can We Make Informed Decisions Without Risk know-how?  

 Delegates at Europe’s premier platform for interdisciplinary and intersectional debate about scientific culture, scientific research and innovation learned about the growing need for communities to make trade-offs and develop risk know-how, be it about managing dwindling fishing stocks or increasing rainfall, understanding emerging diseases or the impact of new types of mining and power generation. But they were also invited to consider risk know-how as a facilitator for informed decision-making.  

Policymakers need to not only make well-informed decisions but to also explain these decisions to citizens: how were the benefits and costs of action or inaction weighed up? The panel introduced the risk know-how framework, which sets out key elements of understanding risk that have the strongest practical application in day-to-day life and discussed the aspects of risk know-how that are especially key for policymakers. Panellists set out the case for replacing inaction stemming from a perceived lack of understanding of risks with action to empower different communities with risk know-how and to reflect their needs in information, training and resources. There was a strong focus on how statisticians, scientists, advisors, journalists and even citizens can support and engage with policymakers to ensure that communities are equipped to navigate risk information and empowered to make decisions that are right for them.  

It was fantastic to hear the critical reflections from speakers with a wide range of experiences, from the decision-making of the European Commission to the visualisation of statistical data during the pandemic. What we all agreed on was that we need to serve practitioners better and reflect on real trade-offs that communities face in day-to-day life.

Tracey Brown, Director of Sense about Science

Global call for information providers to share knowledge not just data

The Risk Know-How initiative has highlighted the urgent need for those generating and communicating information and statistics important to people’s lives to think of themselves as answering questions, not just providing data.

Nearly 100 community risk practitioners from around the world are sharing their experiences, showing the need for clear information and practical tools to help make trade-offs, and understand risk in context of other risks. But unfortunately, the information on risks that is disseminated by official bodies and major institutions is sometimes not relevant to the real dilemmas in everyday life.

Risk Know-How is keen to collaborate with data producers to help them make information more accessible and useful to those who need it, including co-producing training materials that ensure staff are confident to properly disseminate important information to the public.

Risk know-how at Lloyd’s Register Foundation Safer World Conference in May 2022

The Risk Know-How team hosted a plenary session at the LRF Safer World Conference on Wed 11th May 2022. We presented our findings and insights from the project so far and convened a panel of experts in statistics, risk literacy and risk communications to discuss how official bodies and major information providers could better support people navigating complex data and information at the community level.

Michael Blastland, renowned broadcaster and board member of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, delivered a keynote on how understanding risk should help the public. “Is data improving our risk assessment or are we just making the same mistakes with more gigabytes?”, he asked the audience of international thought leaders from research, academia, business and government.

Further to introductions to the risk know-how framework and the discussions we have been having with community practitioners, our other panellists Sarah Cumbers, LRF Director of Evidence and Insight, Olivia Jensen, Lead Scientist at the LRF Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk at the National University of Singapore and Tracey Brown OBE, Director of Sense about Science, joined Michael Blastland for the panel discussion. There was a strong focus on the need to sensitise institutions to the needs of the communities they work with and the challenges they face in everyday decision-making.

Can information providers internalise this user group? Can they start thinking of themselves as answering people’s questions rather than producing data?

Tracey Brown, Director of Sense about Science

Risk know-how framework featured in Significance magazine

‘What is risk know-how?’, produced in collaboration with the American Statistical Association and Sense about Science, is a call for statisticians and risk experts to get involved in making sense of risk from a practical approach at the community level.

The article presents the risk know-how framework and showcases a range of risk navigation experiences drawn from conversations with communities from all over the world. It also includes comments from leading statisticians and experts in risk literacy and risk communication.

View Article

Session on Risk know-how at Understanding Risk Asia Conference in December 2021

A session on risk know-how is being organised by Sense about Science and the Institute for Public Understanding of Risk at the National University of Singapore at the Understanding Risk Asia conference on 3rd December 2021. The interactive session will engage the audience in identifying the elements of understanding risk which have the strongest practical application in day-to-day life.

Find out more about the panel and the conference. Click here

Risk know-how briefing in UK Parliament during Evidence Week 2021

Evidence Week has been held annually in Westminster since 2018, and brings together researchers, community groups and parliamentarians to share ideas about research and policy.

In the 2021 edition, held early November, Risk Know-How had an in-person stand at the event to brief MPs and Parliamentarians on how the framework can help to respond to constituents’ queries on risks in their community such as flooding, COVID-19 tests in schools, or how AI facial recognition might be deployed in future.

Find out more about Evidence Week here