Santa Fe Institute

Working Group

November 01, 2012
Collins Conference Room

The SFI Risk Working Group has a mandate to understand risk and how to mitigate its consequences.  The WG will take a broad look at risk in many forms, including financial, natural hazard, societal, ecological, and in many other venues.  More specifically, the objectives include:

o   Defining risk in a variety of complex systems

o   Collecting and cataloging observational risk data

o   Identifying common features

o   Quantifying through definitions of metrics and statistics

o   Modeling risk with numerical simulations

o   Mitigating risk and understanding the decision process(es)

o   Managing risk through appropriate strategies and approaches

Questions that the group will discuss involve the following.

o   What do we mean by risk?

o   Interactions, correlations, feedbacks: (My risk may be your opportunity)

o   Risk and vulnerability:  How do we characterize/measure it in various venues? Where does it come from?

o   Models for risk: What is the basis? (statistical, deterministic, network models)

o   Data: How much is enough?  What kinds? What level of accuracy? Crowd-sourced? Public databases? Real-time? Streaming?

o   Communication: How can risk best be communicated to the public or leaders? Internet? Other?

o   In the age of the internet, should we pursue top-down solutions or bottom-up (crowd-sourced) solutions?

o   If we can't control the hazard, can we control exposure to the hazard? (since risk = hazard x vulnerability)

o   What types of solutions are available?  Political?  Economic?  Commercial?

o   What are the roles of government? Academia?  Business?

o   Four pieces of the disaster cycle include: Anticipation, Mitigation, Response, Recovery. What can we say about all these?

SFI Host: John Rundle

• * SFI community lectures are free, open, & accessible to the public.
• * Seminars & colloquia are geared for scientists but free & open to the interested public.
• * All other SFI events are by invitation only.
• * Note: We are unable to accommodate members of the public for SFI's limited lunch service; you're welcome to bring your own.