International Risk Governance Council
Encyclopedia
Founded in June 2003 at the initiative of the Swiss government, the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) is an independent and neutral organisation whose purpose is to help improve the understanding and management of potentially global risks that have impacts on human health and safety, the environment, the economy and society at large. This involves working to develop concepts of risk governance, anticipating major risk issues and providing risk governance policy advice for key decision-makers.
IRGC focuses in particular on emerging, systemic risks for which governance deficits exist, and aims to provide recommendations for how policymakers can correct these deficits. Many of these risks are complex, uncertain, or even ambiguous. In most cases, the potential benefits and risks interconnect. By facilitating a better understanding of these risks and their scientific, political, social, and economic contexts, IRGC aims to foster improvements in risk governance that will ultimately optimise risk-related decision-making and maximise public trust in governance processes and structures.
Where important, global risks are concerned, IRGC considers it essential that the principles of integrated risk governance become accepted and implemented at the very highest levels of decision-making. It believes that, by combining forces and strengthening their scientific research agendas, governments, industry, international and large non-governmental organisations can achieve more coherent and better science-based policymaking, regulation and risk communication, resulting in implementation of the best possible options for governing global risks.
Areas of concern to IRGC include to:
Every network member is an active contributor to IRGC’s work, whether via the provision of funding, expertise and research work, or a combination of these. In return, members benefit from access to the entire network and the significant pool of knowledge and useful contacts this represents. They also have the opportunity to attend events (such as international workshops and conferences) organised within the IRGC network, and to influence the further development of IRGC’s activities.
Members include academic and scientific institutions that are active in the realm of risk governance (affiliates); governments, intergovernmental organisations and private sector companies (partners); and regional or national groupings of public, private and scientific or academic institutions working on risk governance related matters (branches).
Project work is supervised by the Scientific and Technical Council, which controls scientific quality. It is undertaken mainly by the affiliates in the IRGC network, who may also engage external experts for their specific knowledge and insights, as required. Publications resulting from this project work are all subject to peer review and, once complete, they are communicated to an international audience, with recipients being selected based on their interest in the risk issue in question. IRGC also supports publication by its affiliated partners in scientific and management journals as well as new media.
In particular, IRGC concentrates its attention on ignored or neglected risk issues – issues for which no single organisation, government or company perceives itself as having responsibility and where there is a general lack of interest because the consequences of the risk seem uncertain, remote or without ramifications for stakeholders’ immediate material interests. IRGC tasks itself with bringing these emerging risk issues, along with their potential benefits and potential adverse consequences, to the attention of policymakers and risk practitioners.
Examples of past projects include, but are not limited to:
A permanent feature of IRGC’s programme is project work devoted to developing concepts of risk governance that have relevance across different risk fields, organisations and countries. The first major achievement in this area was the development of *IRGC’s risk governance framework
As a follow-up to the framework, an analysis and illustration was made for a number of Risk Governance Deficits. A risk governance deficit is a failure in the identification, framing, assessment, management and communication of a risk issue or of how it is being addressed. As such, it can also be understood as a risk governance challenge. Governance deficits are common. They may be found throughout the risk handling process, and limit its effectiveness. They are actual and potential shortcomings and can be remedied or mitigated.
Emerging Risks is another core concept on which IRGC works. IRGC defines as “emerging” a risk that is new, or a familiar risk in a new or unfamiliar context or under new context conditions (re-emerging). Emerging risks are issues that are perceived to be potentially significant but which may not be fully understood and assessed, thus not allowing risk management options to be developed with confidence. Project work includes identifying contributing factors and developing an approach to risk emergence.
All IRGC publications are available online from www.irgc.org
The knowledge community, those responsible for providing the best scientific advice on which risk management decisions depend, were also encountering difficulties in meeting the demands for factual certainty; where this was clearly established, there were problems in communicating the knowledge to the decision-making community. Decision-makers were themselves struggling with problems which included the burgeoning volume of data, the sheer pace of technical and natural developments, the increase in public expectation of effective risk management and organisational and ownership changes affecting how, and by whom, risk decisions are made.
It was against this background that, in early 1999, the 10th Forum Engelberg, an annual gathering in Switzerland of scientists, government leaders and heads of industry, concluded by resolving to create an independent, international body to bridge the increasing gaps between science, technological development, decision-makers and the public and, in doing so, act as the catalyst for improvements in the design and implementation of effective risk governance strategies. It was felt that a new organisation would be better able to do this than the many existing risk-related institutions whose single sectoral, disciplinary and/or geographic emphases made it difficult for them to undertake such a broad mandate. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the IRGC was formally established in 2003.
More recent events confirm that the issue of risk governance remains of the utmost importance. The outbreak of SARS, spreading rapidly through 27 countries and killing 774 of the 8096 people infected, demonstrated the capacity of a new pathogenic virus to cause considerable health risks and to have a substantial economic impact. Losses, both human and economic, continue to increase from natural disasters such as the tsunami of December 2004, Hurricane Katrina, the Pakistan and Sichuan earthquakes and Hurricane Nargis that hit Myanmar in 2008. The fragility of critical infrastructures has been demonstrated in the early 21st Century by the massive blackouts in the US and Canada and across Italy and other European countries. There are concerns about maintaining secure energy supplies and developing sustainable sources of energy. Most prominent of all global risks are those which derive from the impacts of climate change, with side-effects in many unanticipated areas.
All such risks have rippling effects and secondary impacts; they all exceed the capacity of any individual country to manage them, reinforcing the need for an organisation such as IRGC to propose governance approaches with global validity.
IRGC focuses in particular on emerging, systemic risks for which governance deficits exist, and aims to provide recommendations for how policymakers can correct these deficits. Many of these risks are complex, uncertain, or even ambiguous. In most cases, the potential benefits and risks interconnect. By facilitating a better understanding of these risks and their scientific, political, social, and economic contexts, IRGC aims to foster improvements in risk governance that will ultimately optimise risk-related decision-making and maximise public trust in governance processes and structures.
Where important, global risks are concerned, IRGC considers it essential that the principles of integrated risk governance become accepted and implemented at the very highest levels of decision-making. It believes that, by combining forces and strengthening their scientific research agendas, governments, industry, international and large non-governmental organisations can achieve more coherent and better science-based policymaking, regulation and risk communication, resulting in implementation of the best possible options for governing global risks.
Areas of concern to IRGC include to:
- Champion ignored, neglected and emerging issues
- Mobilise the creation of risk governance cultures in developed and emerging economies
- Help organisations across the globe anticipate and respond to risks more effectively
- Facilitate scientific and technological innovation
- Slow-developing catastophic risks
The IRGC Network
IRGC is organised as a network consisting of affiliates, partners and branches and coordinated by the IRGC Secretariat in Geneva. Thanks to the cooperation and knowledge transfer that occurs amongst network members, this structure allows IRGC to address the diversity of cultures and contexts, to maximise its impact in terms of geographic outreach, to deal with diverse audiences, and to increase its economic efficiency.Every network member is an active contributor to IRGC’s work, whether via the provision of funding, expertise and research work, or a combination of these. In return, members benefit from access to the entire network and the significant pool of knowledge and useful contacts this represents. They also have the opportunity to attend events (such as international workshops and conferences) organised within the IRGC network, and to influence the further development of IRGC’s activities.
Members include academic and scientific institutions that are active in the realm of risk governance (affiliates); governments, intergovernmental organisations and private sector companies (partners); and regional or national groupings of public, private and scientific or academic institutions working on risk governance related matters (branches).
Projects
IRGC primarily meets its objectives through projects, the publication and communication of the results of this project work, and the organisation of conferences and workshops where attention is focused on specific risk issues and their governance. IRGC is deliberately inclusive and proactively works at an international level with experts and decision-makers from government, industry, intergovernmental organisations, academia and research institutions, NGOs and other backgrounds. This interactive dialogue between policy makers and other stakeholders can support a deeper understanding of the issues under discussion, promote the development of proposals for new risk governance approaches and allow for areas of agreement - and disagreement - to be identified and explored. These experts and decision-makers may be from within, or external to, the IRGC network.Project work is supervised by the Scientific and Technical Council, which controls scientific quality. It is undertaken mainly by the affiliates in the IRGC network, who may also engage external experts for their specific knowledge and insights, as required. Publications resulting from this project work are all subject to peer review and, once complete, they are communicated to an international audience, with recipients being selected based on their interest in the risk issue in question. IRGC also supports publication by its affiliated partners in scientific and management journals as well as new media.
Focus and work programme
Most of the problem fields prioritised by IRGC are characterised by the scale of their potential impact, their long-term nature and by complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. They all present substantial challenges to those responsible for developing and implementing appropriate policy initiatives, not least because of their global nature and the complicated network of international, governmental and other organisations – including business – responsible for their management.In particular, IRGC concentrates its attention on ignored or neglected risk issues – issues for which no single organisation, government or company perceives itself as having responsibility and where there is a general lack of interest because the consequences of the risk seem uncertain, remote or without ramifications for stakeholders’ immediate material interests. IRGC tasks itself with bringing these emerging risk issues, along with their potential benefits and potential adverse consequences, to the attention of policymakers and risk practitioners.
Examples of past projects include, but are not limited to:
- Risk Governance
- Synthetic Biology
- Geoengineering
- Pollination Services
- Carbon Capture & Storage
- Nanotechologies
- Bioenergy
- Critical Infrastructures
- Influenza Pandemic
IRGC Diagnostics: Developing concepts and guidance for improved risk governance
IRGC believes that improvements in risk governance are essential if optimal risk-related decisions are to be made and to maximise public trust in the processes and structures by which they are made.A permanent feature of IRGC’s programme is project work devoted to developing concepts of risk governance that have relevance across different risk fields, organisations and countries. The first major achievement in this area was the development of *IRGC’s risk governance framework
As a follow-up to the framework, an analysis and illustration was made for a number of Risk Governance Deficits. A risk governance deficit is a failure in the identification, framing, assessment, management and communication of a risk issue or of how it is being addressed. As such, it can also be understood as a risk governance challenge. Governance deficits are common. They may be found throughout the risk handling process, and limit its effectiveness. They are actual and potential shortcomings and can be remedied or mitigated.
Emerging Risks is another core concept on which IRGC works. IRGC defines as “emerging” a risk that is new, or a familiar risk in a new or unfamiliar context or under new context conditions (re-emerging). Emerging risks are issues that are perceived to be potentially significant but which may not be fully understood and assessed, thus not allowing risk management options to be developed with confidence. Project work includes identifying contributing factors and developing an approach to risk emergence.
Special Reports
IRGC is widely recognised for its strong scientific contributions to the field of risk governance through its publications and research workshops. We routinely publish special reports on topical risk governance issues, including:- Improving the Management of Emerging Risks: Risks from new technologies, system interactions and unforeseen or changing circumstances (2011)
- Risk Governance of Maritime Global Critical Infrastructure: The Straits of Malacca and Singapore (2011)
- Guidelines for the appropriate risk governance of synthetic biology (2010)
- Cooling the Earth through solar radiation management; the need for research and an approach to its governance (2010)
- Risk of loss of pollination services (2009)
- Risk governance guidelines for bioenergy policies (2008)
- Appropriate risk governance strategies for nanotechnology applications in food and cosmetics (2008)
- Regulation of carbon capture and storage (2007)
All IRGC publications are available online from www.irgc.org
Events
The ability of IRGC to convene leaders involved in risk governance in a neutral setting is one of the most noted aspects of the organisation. IRGC is able to consistently schedule these gatherings two to three times per year in strategic locations, providing opportunities for key stakeholders to come together and discuss the field’s most urgent topics and themes.Why IRGC was Established
IRGC’s establishment followed the heightened level of public concern about risks and their management in the late 1990s. The cumulative impact of the BSE (Mad Cow Disease) crisis in Europe and particularly the UK, apprehension about genetic engineering, fears of the global failure of IT systems (the “Millennium Bug”) and an increase in the frequency and severity of natural disasters gave the impression that society appeared on the verge of losing control of a number of risks. This anxiety compounded other public concerns about the increasing speed of technological change and the difficulties facing governments, regulators and others involved in risk governance in fully assessing and controlling the associated risks.The knowledge community, those responsible for providing the best scientific advice on which risk management decisions depend, were also encountering difficulties in meeting the demands for factual certainty; where this was clearly established, there were problems in communicating the knowledge to the decision-making community. Decision-makers were themselves struggling with problems which included the burgeoning volume of data, the sheer pace of technical and natural developments, the increase in public expectation of effective risk management and organisational and ownership changes affecting how, and by whom, risk decisions are made.
It was against this background that, in early 1999, the 10th Forum Engelberg, an annual gathering in Switzerland of scientists, government leaders and heads of industry, concluded by resolving to create an independent, international body to bridge the increasing gaps between science, technological development, decision-makers and the public and, in doing so, act as the catalyst for improvements in the design and implementation of effective risk governance strategies. It was felt that a new organisation would be better able to do this than the many existing risk-related institutions whose single sectoral, disciplinary and/or geographic emphases made it difficult for them to undertake such a broad mandate. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, the IRGC was formally established in 2003.
More recent events confirm that the issue of risk governance remains of the utmost importance. The outbreak of SARS, spreading rapidly through 27 countries and killing 774 of the 8096 people infected, demonstrated the capacity of a new pathogenic virus to cause considerable health risks and to have a substantial economic impact. Losses, both human and economic, continue to increase from natural disasters such as the tsunami of December 2004, Hurricane Katrina, the Pakistan and Sichuan earthquakes and Hurricane Nargis that hit Myanmar in 2008. The fragility of critical infrastructures has been demonstrated in the early 21st Century by the massive blackouts in the US and Canada and across Italy and other European countries. There are concerns about maintaining secure energy supplies and developing sustainable sources of energy. Most prominent of all global risks are those which derive from the impacts of climate change, with side-effects in many unanticipated areas.
All such risks have rippling effects and secondary impacts; they all exceed the capacity of any individual country to manage them, reinforcing the need for an organisation such as IRGC to propose governance approaches with global validity.