Risk and Uncertainty Conference, Lund 2024
Evidence and Ethics in Uncertainty Communication, Judgment, and Decision-Making
Date & Venue
11-12 June 2024
Lund University, Sweden
Description
The 4th Risk and Uncertainty Conference (RUC) will bring together world-leading scholars on risk and uncertainty communication and is scheduled to take place between June 11-12th 2024 in Lund, Sweden. Previous RUC meetings
RUC 2024 is hosted by Medical Ethics, the Centre for Environmental and Climate Science and the Department of Philosophy at Lund University, in collaboration with King’s Centre for Risk Management, Department of Geography, King’s College London.
The overarching theme this year is evidence and ethics in uncertainty communication, judgment, and decision-making
Programme
Keynote Speakers
Professor Ellen Peters, Philip H. Knight Chair, Director, Center for Science Communication Research, University of Oregon, USA
The power of numeric evidence in science communication
Challenges exist in presenting numeric information in science communication. For example, public innumeracy—and experts’ concerns about providing numbers—suggest not showing them. On the other hand, people often prefer getting them and their provision can increase comprehension, trust, engagement, and healthy behaviors while reducing risk overestimates and supporting decision-maker autonomy. Presenting numeric facts without considering their comprehensibility and usability though is like throwing good money after bad. Thus, we’ll briefly examine three general strategies for nurturing comprehension and use of numbers in other persons.
Joseph B. (“Jay”) Kadane, the Leonard J. Savage University Professor of Statistics, Emeritus in the Department of Statistics and Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Interpersonal Bayesian Analysis: Foundations, Ethics, and Communication
I review the basics of Bayesianism, emphasizing its personal or subjective roots. Both the probability model (likelihood and prior) and the utility function are thus the responsibility of the analyst. I also review the impossibility theorem that studies two Bayesians who differ in both probability and utility. They seek a Bayesian compromise subject only to the constraint that if each prefers option A to another B, then their compromise must also. Under these conditions the only Bayesian compromises are autocratic: make decisions optimal for one of the two parties. After rejecting solipsism (it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks), I recount an environmental study in which there were choices of what to report, one unethical, two solipsistic, but one both ethical and non-solipsistic. I close with suggestions about communication.
Professor Danielle Timmermans, Professor in Public Health Risk Communication, Amsterdam Public Health research institute, The Netherlands
Communicating uncertainties about scientific evidence and health risks to the public during the COVID19 pandemic: a good idea?
Despite major uncertainties at the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic, communications to the public in the Netherlands often lacked references to the uncertainty of scientific knowledge about e.g. the contagiousness of the virus. Only later in the pandemic did politicians and experts more often mention the associated risks and uncertainties. This may have to do with the perception of politicians and experts that the public cannot deal with uncertainties and therefore they played down the uncertainty. Furthermore, uncertainty about scientific evidence may not have been relevant to policy decisions on measures to control the pandemic at specific phases of the pandemic. I will discuss the results of our recent interview study with Dutch policymakers, scientific experts and communications professionals involved in advising politicians on how to deal with the pandemic.
Registration
The number of participants is limited to 40 persons. The conference fee is 1750 SEK and the conference dinner is included in the conference fee.
Contact the organisers (Ullrika Sahlin) directly that you would like to attend.
The organisers send a link for registration to those that have an accepted abstract have shown an interest that they would like to attend the meeting. We will prioritise attendees that will be active and participate in the full meeting, including the conference dinner.
Call for abstracts
There is still room for a few more oral talks and plenty of room for posters (including voluntary highlighting talks) Current accepted abstracts
We will continuously review abstract submissions for oral talks or posters. We welcome diverse submissions across domains, including health, safety, politics, security, the environment, and climate change as long as the research has clear policy-implications.
Submit your abstract as soon as possible! and also notify
Organisers
Medical Ethics, Lund University (Professor Nils-Eric Sahlin, Dr Niklas Vareman)
Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, Lund University (Dr Ullrika Sahlin)
Department of Philosophy, Lund University (Professor Johannes Persson)
Department of Geography, King’s College London (Professor Ragnar Löfstedt)
Funding
Journal of Risk Research