Conference

 Risk Perception: Current Theories and Debates

University of Nottingham

Friday 7 th September 2007

UK Chapter CONFERENCE 2007  

The UK Chapter conference on “Risk Perception: Current Theories and Debates” was held on Friday 7 th September 2007 in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham. Forty delegates attended representing countries from around the world including France, Sweden, Japan, the USA and the UK. Professor Nick Pidgeon from the University of Cardiff got the conference off to a thought provoking start with his keynote presentation on “Risk perception, climate change and UK energy policy”.

Nick Pidgeon giving his keynote presentation.

Morning and afternoon parallel sessions covered a wide range of risk-related topics and issues reminding us of the importance and relevance of risk perception research in contemporary society. Over lunch poster presentations were on view and delegates voted for their favourite. The best poster prize (£50 book tokens) was shared between Christopher Jones from the University of Cardiff and Mat White from the University of Plymouth.

Christopher Jones and Mat White receive their best poster awards

Professor Joyce Tait, Director of INNOGEN at the University of Edinburgh gave a fascinating keynote presentation on “Risk perception, upstream engagement and life science innovation” to bring the conference to a close. Joyce’s presentation was interrupted by a fire alarm five minutes before the end of her talk – we had to evacuate, but Joyce was not fazed and we even managed to get some questions put to her before she had to hop on the train back to Edinburgh!

Joyce Tait giving her keynote presentation

All in all an enjoyable and productive day was had by all with plenty of opportunities for networking. As the conference organiser I would like to express my thanks to all who came and contributed to the conference. In particular, thanks to our keynote speakers, both of whom are fellows of the Society for Risk Analysis. We were extremely privileged to have two such high profile and highly regarded members of the Risk Analysis community giving presentations. I would like to thank the members of the conference advisory committee especially Drs Nick Allum, Scott Campbell and Alexa Spence who did an excellent job of chairing parallel sessions. Finally, many thanks are due to Angela Gillett who was a superb conference administrator.

Conference delegates networking over morning coffee

Many delegates expressed a wish for another similar meeting in the future – volunteers willing to organise a future conference should contact me on: ellen.townsend@nottingham.ac.uk

 

Dr Ellen Townsend, President UK Chapter.

 

Conference Schedule

Abstracts