Focus and Work Programme
Most of the problem fields prioritised by IRGC are characterised by the scale of their potential impact, their long-term nature and by complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. They all present substantial challenges to those responsible for developing and implementing appropriate policy initiatives, not least because of their global nature and the complicated network of international, governmental and other organisations – including business – responsible for their management.
In particular, IRGC concentrates its attention on ignored or neglected risk issues – issues for which no single organisation, government or company perceives itself as having responsibility and where there is a general lack of interest because the consequences of the risk seem uncertain, remote or without ramifications for stakeholders’ immediate material interests. IRGC tasks itself with bringing these emerging risk issues, along with their potential benefits and potential adverse consequences, to the attention of policymakers and risk practitioners. Examples of past projects include, but are not limited to:
- Risk Governance
- Synthetic Biology
- Geoengineering
- Pollination Services
- Carbon Capture & Storage
- Nanotechologies
- Bioenergy
- Critical Infrastructures
- Influenza Pandemic
Read more about this topic: International Risk Governance Council
Famous quotes containing the words focus, work and/or programme:
“It’s sad but true that if you focus your attention on housework and meal preparation and diapers, raising children does start to look like drudgery pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you see yourself as nothing less than your child’s nurturer, role model, teacher, spiritual guide, and mentor, your days take on a very different cast.”
—Joyce Maynard (20th century)
“Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”
—Mother Teresa (b. 1910)
“In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)