The annual conference of the DACHL chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis - Europe (SRA-E) will be jointly organised by the research and consulting company HF Partners and the Swiss Centre for Applied Human Toxicology (SCAHT) of the University of Basel.

It will take place on the premises of the University of Basel in Basel, Switzerland, (Riehenstrasse 154, Room 00.015) from 11 to 12 September 2025 (lunch-to-lunch with a social event on the evening of September 11th).

The conference aims at presenting and discussing established or innovative methods of risk research. Contributions from all areas of risk research are welcome (i.e., risk analysis, risk evaluation, risk management, risk communication, risk perception, risk behaviour, risk governance and related fields). Scientists from different disciplines researching different risk topics (e.g., health risks, environmental risks, economic risks) are strongly encouraged to participate in the conference. The conference aims to bring together scientists and practitioners of all levels of experience - from students to established scientists. The language of the conference is English.

Program

The conference program features individual sessions with a focus on discussion among the participants (see Contributions below) and three keynote talks from renowned experts in their respective fields. The third keynote talk is yet to be confirmed.

Potentials and problems of computational risk assessment of human behaviour

Dr. Bennett Kleinberg

Associate Professor in Behavioural Data Science at the Department of Methodology and Statistics at Tilburg University (NL) and the Department of Security and Crime Science at the University College London (UK)

He previously held a position at the UCL Dawes Centre for Future Crime and obtained his PhD from the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. His research revolves around the interplay and advancement of computational methods and psychological research to study human behaviour. With his lab, he seeks to answer two questions: (1) How can computational methods enhance our understanding of human behaviour? (2) How can psychological research methods inform our understanding of computational model behaviour? Substantive research interests include deception detection, passenger risk assessment, human resilience, and machine behaviour. Methodologically, his work examines the nexus between complex data (e.g., text) and psychological processes. His lab employs methods from experimental psychological research, Natural Language Processing, (adversarial) machine learning and statistical modelling. He is also an active contributor to the open science community. His research on risk assessment has been funded by the organisations such as the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice, the Ministry of Defense, and the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee.

Systems thinking and modeling for resilience analysis

Prof. Dr. Birgit Kopainsky

Professor in System Dynamics at the University of Bergen

Her research explores the role that systems thinking and modeling can play in facilitating sustainability transitions, from negotiating a shared understanding among stakeholders with conflicting views and priorities to the use of simulation models as learning tools where stakeholders are better able to continuously test, learn about and develop knowledge and understanding in order to cope with change and uncertainty. She has extensive empirical research and project management experience in a variety of sustainable development domains cutting across scientific disciplines, geographical contexts and societal actors.

Contributions

Contributions can be in the form of short talks, posters and/or hands-on demonstrations. The contributions describe the method and explain its advantages, disadvantages, effectiveness, validity, and possible applications. For example,

• an established method could be presented and discussed,
• a validation of a scale can be described, or
• speakers could introduce an innovative form of data collection, measurement, or statistical evaluation.

The conference is designed in such a way that there is plenty of time for discussion - also and especially about the transfer of individual methods from one risk topic to another or from one discipline to another.

The abstracts (max. 300 words) can be submitted via email to Dr. Angela Bearth.

Important dates