Multimedia - 2010

The human dimension of risk is an important and under-explored aspect of risk management issues. How we perceive risk, and understanding patterns of behaviour and seeing how these relate to the processes of decision-making and policy development needs greater exploration. The business school's Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies 2nd Annual Meeting - 'The Human Dimension of Risk: Perception, Behaviour and Decision-Making in Risk Management' - took on that gigantic challenge.

Michelle Tuveson says decision-making in risk management relies on cultural perceptions of how we perceive those 'threats'. However she warns that risk must not be observed from a parochial point of view; it must be seen from a global view point.

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Andrew Freeman, Executive Director of the Deloitte Centre for Financial Services, explains how his panel discussion viewed the challenges of managing perception when a culture is in crisis. Key, he said, was ensuring that at any given moment in time, the decision makers have access to the right information.

Professor Ed Bullmore of the University of Cambridge's Department of Psychiatry, who is Director of the Behavioural & Clinical Neuroscience Institute, says there exist useful analogies between the world of neuroscience and the world of business and risk. You can build a better business model through understanding the brain, he argues.

Professor Haresh Shah, Chairman of the Advisory Board at the Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, makes the case for allowing the poorest to insure against risks great and small.

Dr Leslie Knapp, Reader at the University of Cambridge's Department of Anthropology, explains how observing group behaviour in primates, in particular how they herd and respond to 'threats', can teach us a lot about ourselves.

Professor Frank Kelly, statistician, & Master of Christ's College at the University of Cambridge, says he's fascinated by the scaling up of risks, and the roles of networks and corporations and the ensuing efficiencies in this global society. He warns however that whilst failures are becoming increasingly rare, when they do inevitably happen they will be catastrophic in their nature due to our interconnected dependencies.

'Values', say Alan Smith, Global Head of Risk Strategy at HSBC, have become even more important in this 'complex' age of banking. Commenting in a personal capacity, he said the 'wisdom' of risk managers will be ever more important.

Risk, argues Dr John Coates, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, is pro-cyclical. We can go from being too risky to being risk-averse and this change in sentiment can impact markets too. A bear market can lead to a crash, and a bull market to a bubble.

Dr Simon Singh is heading a campaign to reform Britain's libel laws. But while journalists, newspapers, celebrities and citizens have signed up to www.libelreform.org, our reputation for libel tourism continues to grow.