Above: group photo at UCL quad, 16th June
UNRISK students came together for the 3rd and final workshop of the 25/26 academic year, at UCL in London 15th-19th June.
Along with a cohort of students funded by the ARIA programme, they worked together in groups to solve ‘role play’ challenges set by clients in the area of decisions science. The challenge was to communicate climate data to stakeholders and policy makers to enable effective decisions.
Talks, including from Sarah Dryhurst on the perception of risk, set up the group activities. One key message from Sarah’s talk was the concept that “risk does not exist independent of our minds and culture,” demonstrating how personal experiences, emotions, and social influences can shape the way people understand risk. UNRISK team member Erica Thompson led a session considering the ethics of communicating uncertainty to the public, including policymakers.
On the third and fourth days, students took part in educational visits to organisations including the Bank of England, AxaXL, and Climate X. These trips provided an opportunity to see how the concepts discussed during the programme are applied in real-world settings. Following the visits, students returned to their project groups to prepare their final presentations. Students found it valuable to see how organisations assess and manage risk in practice, as well as the decision-making processes used.
A networking lunch was held on Tuesday 16th for both student cohorts, supervisors and other researchers linked to the programmes.
A prize was awarded for the “best group project delivering climate information for decision-makers”. Charles Benoist and Qien Cai were the UNRISK students on the winning team for their work looking at provision of climate information for Maritime Greenwich.
Group photo – UNRISK and ARIA students at Bank of England
