The Risk Institute project’s goal is to develop cross-disciplinary research and scientific innovation in the field of disaster and risk management, specifically in areas that are made vulnerable due to a strong interdependency between human, natural or technological hazards. In addition to the Grenoble area, the project focuses on other specific vulnerable territories such as the Beirut area (Lebanon), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), and areas in Peru and in Nepal. The project also aims at proposing a risk institute within Université Grenoble Alpes.

Challenges

With 14 million people left homeless every year by natural disasters, and an estimated global cost of 330 billion Euros in 2017 alone, the main goal of the project is to contribute to the proactive mitigation of disaster risks and the development of the culture of risk. It is dedicated to a global and regional challenge, which is fundamental for the decades to come, due to the increase of the world population with often-anarchic densification of urbanized areas, the increasing human impact on ecosystems, but also the emergence of new risks induced by climate change and technological development.

Interdisciplinarity

The project federates a hundred researchers belonging to 15 research labs from Human and Social Sciences, Information and System Sciences, Geosciences, and Engineering Sciences. The scientific challenges of collecting and processing heterogeneous data, modeling complex and cascaded
phenomena, multi-objective decision making, and assessing or defining risk governance schemes require truly global and interdisciplinary approaches.

Project's organization...

The project proposes an innovative scientific approach to address the following challenging issues: managing data heterogeneity through a participatory approach; integrating rare or emergent events and cascading effects; moving from a static/reactive risk management approach to a proactive/dynamic approach; and designing appropriate strategies for, on the one hand, disaster risk reduction (apart from a relevant assessment of vulnerabilities and local cultures) and for communications on the other, in order to better manage risk and strengthen the culture of risk.

... and its international visibility

The project is fully in line with Sendai’s United Nations conference framework on disaster risk prevention in 2015, which encourages countries to better prevent and anticipate disaster risks. It aims at becoming a privileged interlocutor of the risk management stakeholders in France and abroad, in particular on the 5 selected study sites (economic sphere, public authorities, humanitarian organizations, academia or risk center networks).

The project will offer a strong contribution to both the structure and visibility of Université Grenoble Alpes in the field of risk assessment and management, by proposing in fine a risk management institute, unique in France. The Risk Institute project will foster the development of new interdisciplinary methodologies by research teams to better work together, and will contribute to the transfer of research results to relevant stakeholders and decision-makers. It will also actively participate in reinforcing interdisciplinary curricula in risk management.