The Risk Institute

Contributing to risk science: interdisciplinarity and knowledge sharing

Objectives

The aim of the Grenoble Risk Institute is to federate and energize local research in risk sciences and training, and to strengthen the Université Grenoble Alpes position and visibility in this field, in conjunction with its network of partners.
To this end, the institute is positioned as :

A one-stop shop and a label for local researchers on the theme, for example to build joint responses to calls for projects (ANR, Europe...).
An interface for networking local researchers with the national and international levels, as well as with a wide network of institutional, operational and private partners. In the short and medium term (2022-2030), the Risk Institute will act as a local contact within the Programme et Equipements Prioritaires de Recherche (PEPR) Integrated Risks Management (IRiMa) for the UGA, which is co-sponsoring this PEPR.

N.B. The Risk Institute is not a funding agency (although it may, depending on its resources, support certain scientific projects or activities), and is not intended to duplicate existing structures (Pôles, Labex, etc.). Within the institute, the task will be to identify needs and prioritize and rationalize requests.

A Scientific structure, centered around three axes

Networking

Throughout the year, the Risk Institute offers its network meetings, events, seminars, workshops and national/international symposia, as well as innovation projects in conjunction with local, national and international partners.
Risk information is available on its website, in a newsletter and in special reports.
The aim is to disseminate the knowledge produced to all audiences and to promote interdisciplinarity.

How to join the network

Research

Five thematic clusters bring together nearly 120 researchers in Grenoble and their networks of public and private partners.
They provide meeting places for writing scientific articles, creating links to co-funding for major national and European projects and co-constructing partnership research projects (including co-funded Cifre-type theses). They propose to work together to consolidate data (citizens, partner laboratories, public institutions, companies) and to structure simulation platforms; the aim is also to identify the skills needed to respond as closely as possible to requests for action research expertise.

To contact clusters

Teaching

The UGA Graduate School - RISK theme supervises M1 and M2 students in the laboratories. This thematic program aims to provide a solid grounding in the field of technological, natural and financial risks, and more specifically in crisis prevention and management (including coordination, planning and civil security), the resilience of critical infrastructures and territories, and risk insurance and coverage. Students follow a specific research-oriented path within their Master's degree: international Summer School (students, researchers, partners), MOOC Natural Hazards, seminars, serious simulation games, supervision of doctoral and post-doctoral students, continuing education, researcher and student exchanges, etc.

RISK thematic Program of the UGA Graduate School

A cross-disciplinary research team around risks, crisis management and resilience

The institute is structured around :

an Executive Committee, in which the promoters and leaders of the various clusters participate;
a Steering Committee comprising the Executive Committee, all the cluster referents and local partners directly involved;
a Committee of Partners (clusters, labex, national or international risk organizations and institutions, companies, local authorities, government departments);
an International Scientific Committee (scientific experts, research institutes).

Click to enlarge

Members of the International Scientific Committee

Nom	Structure	Thématiques
Rémi BAUDOUÏ	Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Geneva, Switzerland	. Urban ecology, risks, politics . Public policy, urban planning, environment, social development . Emergency, Security, Environmental risks, Terrorism, Cities, Middle East, Peace process, Conflicts
Kees BOERSMA	Faculty of Social Sciences (Department of Organization Sciences) and Faculty of Science (Science, Business & Innovation group) Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands	Crisis management, disaster studies, and innovation management. He is co-founder of the Crisis Resilience Academy of the Amsterdam Institute for Societal Resilience.
Jonathan BRADBURY	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS), Swansea University, United-Kingdom	Politics, Philosophy and International Relations
Diana CONTRERAS	Cardiff University, United-Kingdom	Geospatial Sciences: Disaster management, Earthquake reconnaissance, Vulnerability assessment, Resilience, Climate change adaptation, Water management, Food insecurity, Cultural heritage, Geographical information Sciences (GIS), Natural language processing (NLP)
Giovanna CULTRERA	INGV - Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione Roma1, Italy	Seismology and technophysique
Johan GAUME	ETH ZURICH/SLF, Switzerland	Alpine Environment and Natural Hazards Alpine Mass Movements
Makoto ITOH	Tsukuba University, Japan	Systems safety: mutual trust and cooperation in human-machine systems, cognition, inference, and decision making under uncertainty or gray zone, perception and acceptance of risk.
Rohit JIGYASU	ICCROM, Italy	Conservation architect and disaster risk
Marie-Eve MAJOR	Sherbrooke University, Quebec, Canada	Ergonomics, health at work
Rasa REMENYTE-PRESCOTT	Nottingham University, United-Kingdom	System availability and reliability
Giovanni SANSAVINI	ETH Zurich, Switzerland	Reliability and risk engineering
Markus STOFFEL	University of Geneva, Switzerland	Climate Change Impacts and Risks in the Anthropocene
Marion Lara TAN	Massey University, New-Zealand	Information/communication, crisis informatics for vulnerable territories
Rafael WEISSBRODT	HES-S0 Valais-Wallis, Switzerland	Ergonomics, health and safety at work

An institute built on an interdisciplinary project

The first Cross Disciplinary Program (CDP) Risk funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) was launched at Grenoble University in 2017. This IDEX funding, which is managed by the institution's Research, Innovation and Valorisation department alongside 17 other interdisciplinary projects, has funded 11 joint theses in the field of risk and organised several interdisciplinary events between 2017 and 2021.
More about the RISK@UGA CDP

Following this initial phase, a second phase is now underway to create a Risk Institute within the Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA).
The Grenoble Risk Institute project, one of the UGA's 21 Cross Disciplinary Programs (CDP), aims to build a risk and resilience institute within the UGA. Since September 2022, this project has been supported by the UGA via the CDP Grenoble Institute Risk & Resilience (GI2R) for 3 years (2022-2025). Over and above the administrative aspects of the project, the aim is to create a sustainable RISK Institute beyond 2025, the exact format of which remains to be defined and co-constructed.

RISK Institute project coordinators

Responsible for the UGA
Sandrine CAROLY (Pacte)

Co-coordinators
Sandrine CAROLY (Pacte)
Cécile CORNOU (ISTerre)
Nicolas ECKERT (IGE)

Objectives

Networking

Research

Teaching

Contact : risk.instituteuniv-grenoble-alpes.fr (risk[dot]institute[at]univ-grenoble-alpes[dot]fr)