Closing the Science-Practice Gap in Risk Management

Public Lecture by Roger Kasperson, Research Professor at Clark University, Worchester/ USA

The gap between science and decision making has long been a major concern in risk management. This presentation reports on the project "Vulnerability and Resilience in Science and Practice." This project has expored how knowledge enters into and informs decision making in issues dealing with vulnerability in countries throughout the world. How adequate have science and assessment been in informing and shaping societal responses? What determines how this interface is bridged? An international scope is needed to explore these questions. Conclusions are offered for processes and procedures that help to close this gap.

Roger Kasperson is research professor and distinguished scientist at Clark University in Worchester, USA. He has written widely on issues connected with risk analysis, risk communication, global environmental change, risk and ethics, and environmental policy. Roger Kasperson is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been honored by the Association of American Geographers for his hazards research, and is a recipient of the 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award of the Society for Risk Analysis. He has served on various committees of the National Research Council and the Council of the Society for Risk Analysis. From 1992 to 1996 he chaired the International Geographical Union Commission on Critical Situations/Regions in Environmental Change. He was Vice President for Academic Affairs at Clark University from 1993 to 1996, and in 1999 was elected Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, a post he held through 2004. Prof. Kasperson is a member of various committees, among them the Human Dimensions of Global Change Committee, the Committee on Strategic Advice for the Climate Change Program of the U.S. National Research Council, and the scientific advisory committee of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change.