The 3rd Annual Conference of the Nordic Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis held at Aalto University

Security has become a growing concern to governments, companies, and international organizations. Cyberattacks, for instance, have caused considerable damage and exerted illegitimate influences on public opinion and policy making processes. Yet conventional risk assessment methods are not ideally suited for the analysis of these new forms of risks, which creates the demand for fresh concepts and improved tools.

In this setting, the 3rd Annual Conference Nordic Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), held at Aalto Design Factory on 2-3 November, focused on the timely theme Risk and Security. The conference brought together more than one hundred practitioners and academics with interests in risk analysis and its applications in areas such as ICT, energy, environment, health and transportation. In particular, the conference sought to foster a closer dialogue between the two communities of safety and risk analysis, and to explore what opportunities the possible integration of methods and tools from these partly overlapping communities can offer.

The keynote speakers and panelists included leading academics and practitioners. For example, Ilkka Laitinen (Deputy General of the Finnish Border Guard) provided practical insights into the challenges of managing security risks; Terje Aven (University of Stavanger) clarified the unique characteristics of security risks; Mark Burgman (Imperial College London) considered the reliability of geopolitical forecasts; and Ahti Salo (Aalto University) elaborated on the potential and limitations of adversarial risk analysis. The scientific programme – which included a dedicated session on cybersecurity – is available at https://blogs.aalto.fi/risk2017/programme/. The conference dinner was held at restaurant Löyly where sponsors (including HIIT, represented by Dr. Andrew Paverd from Aalto University) expressed their warmest greetings.

The Nordic Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis is a regional division of the Society for Risk Analysis Europe (SRA-E). It serves as a node for networking between risk researchers, policy makers and other decision makers in the Nordic and the Baltic countries. For more information, see http://www.sraeurope.org/home.aspx?pag=1432