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What evidence exists to help us better prepare for high impact low probability events?
A team of early career civil servants from the Science and Engineering fast stream will be attending Cambridge for a professional development workshop in November 2017.
The workshop will consist of a series of panel discussions and worked examples of how academics and policy professionals work together on public policy issues. Speakers from academia and government will discuss their own experiences of gathering and presenting expert advice and evidence for policy – how the process works, the types of policy issues that require evidence, and examples of what has and hasn’t worked well.
Speakers will include;
- Professor Clive Oppenheimer, Professor of Volcanology, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge
- Dr Catherine Rhodes, Academic Project Manager, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge
- Richard Sandford, Head of Strategic Research, Department for International Trade
- Dr Dudley Hewlett, Head of CBRN Science, Defra
- Liz Surkovic, Head of Policy, Resilience and Emerging Technologies, Royal Society
In the afternoon the attendees will be split in to teams, with each group focusing on a specific policy issue. They will present their ideas back to the panel for further discussion. Policy tasks include;
- How can we better prepare for extreme weather events?
- How can we reduce the use of antibiotics in the food system?
- What would be an appropriate contingency plan for global dimming triggered by a volcanic eruption?
This workshop is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Government Office for Science (GO-Science).
Thumbnail image by John Cooke licensed under CC BY 4.0