IRGC projects - Risk Governance
Core Concepts of Risk and Risk Governance
IRGC believes that improvements in risk governance are essential if optimal risk-related decisions are to be made and to maximise public trust in the processes and structures by which they are made.
A permanent feature of IRGC’s programme is project work devoted to developing concepts of risk governance that have relevance across different risk fields, organisations and countries. The first major achievement in this area was the development of IRGC’s risk governance framework.
A risk governance deficit is a failure in the identification, framing, assessment, management and communication of a risk issue or of how it is being addressed. As such, it can also be understood as a risk governance challenge. Governance deficits are common. They may be found throughout the risk handling process, and limit its effectiveness. They are actual and potential shortcomings and can be remedied or mitigated.
Over the course of this project, IRGC has worked to identify and describe the causes of the most commonly occurring risk governance deficits with the aim of helping governments, regulators and private sector actors to better understand how these deficits occur and how they can be minimised.
As a direct follow-up to its work on risk governance deficits, IRGC is now focussing on emerging risks. IRGC defines as “emerging” a risk that is new, or a familiar risk in a new or unfamiliar context or under new context conditions (re-emerging). Emerging risks are issues that are perceived to be potentially significant but which may not be fully understood and assessed, thus not allowing risk management options to be developed with confidence
This project takes place in two phases. Its purpose is not to develop a list of risks or possible future changes but, instead, to focus on how and why risks emerge (phase 1), and to develop practical guidelines for practitioners in business and the public sector, helping them improve their own capabilities to understand, anticipate and respond to emerging risks (phase 2).