The Initiative
There is increasing recognition across multiple sectors of society that the global risks we face are increasingly complex, uncertain, and systemic. Understanding global risks is essential to effectively respond to and govern them. The Global Risks Perceptions Initiative strives to capture and analyze the perceptions on global risk of different scientific communities with the aim of sparking and informing a pluralistic dialogue around risks that draws on a diversity of experience and knowledge. Ultimately, we strive to enrich our understanding of risks through dialogue and move the global narrative towards solutions.
Our Rationale
How we perceive risk affects how we act on it.
For this reason, it is critical that we accurately assess the full range of risks to humanity and the planet. Over the past 15 years, dialogues and framings of global risks have been strongly shaped by the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risks Report, which surveys the global risk perceptions of world leaders from business, academic, and policy spheres. Yet, as global risks become increasingly complex and interrelated, our ability to accurately and legitimately appraise these risks requires a broadening of the communities assessing them.
Around the world, people’s vulnerability to hazards differ based on their location, socio-economic status, gender, age, education, cultural background, and a number of other factors. Only through inclusive dialogues and a strong understanding of the forces and factors that shape our perception of risk can different segments of society jointly move towards developing common strategies to mitigate and adapt to them. Such collective action will only come about when there is a common and shared sense of risk.
This collaboration between Future Earth, Sustainability in the Digital Age, and the International Science Council aims to contribute to the discourse that has been shaped through the WEF’s important work with an international analysis of scientists’ perceptions of global risks. In doing so, we hope to enrich the conversation around mitigation strategies already underway as well as to spark new and more inclusive dialogues.
Our Team
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE
- Dr. Midori Aoyagi, Principal Researcher, Social and Environmental Systems Division, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan
- Prof. Melody Brown Burkins, Associate Director, The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding; Adjunct Professor, Environmental Studies, Dartmouth College, USA
- Dr. Kalpana Chaudhari, Assistant Professor, Shah And Anchor Kutchhi Engineering College; Vice President, Institute for Sustainable Development and Research (ISDR), Mumbai, India
- Prof. Terrence Forrester, Professor of Experimental Medicine, UWI Solutions for Developing Countries, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica
- Prof. Matthias Garschagen, Professor, Department of Geography, Human-Environment Relations, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
- Dr. Paul Hudson, Lecturer in Environmental Economics, Department for Environment and Geography, University of York, England
- Prof. Maria Ivanova, Associate Professor, Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance, McCormack Graduate School, University of Massachusetts Boston; Director of Center for Governance and Sustainability and Director of the Global Environmental Governance Project, USA
- Prof. Edward Maibach, University Professor, George Mason University; Director, Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication, USA
- Prof. Damon Matthews, Professor and Research Chair in Climate Science and Sustainability, Concordia University; Scientific Co-Director, Sustainability in the Digital Age, Canada
- Anne-Sophie Stevance, Senior Science Officer, International Science Council, France
- Dr. Sylvia Wood, Lead Scientist for Research and Development, Habitat, Canada
FUTURE EARTH & SUSTAINABILITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE
- Jennifer Garard
- Seth Wynes