International Conference on Risk Analysis ICRA 6 / RISK 2015

Between 26 and 29 May, the International Conference on Risk Analysis (ICRA 6/Risk 15) will be presenting in Barcelona the latest developments concerning risk analysis and will be the first meeting of researchers from the different areas of the discipline such as health, engineering and finance, which nevertheless share a common work method.

The organization of the conference, to be held from 26 to 29 May spread between CosmoCaixa and UPF, is hosted by University of Barcelona, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ??the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the Open University of Catalonia, and Pompeu Fabra University, five centres which, together with the Barcelona & Risk Analytics consortium, will make the Catalan capital an international benchmark in the field of risk analysis.

Some 200 researchers from around the world will be attending this meeting, which opens on 26 May at 5.30 pm at the auditorium of CosmoCaixa in Barcelona, while the various sessions will take place from 27 to 29 May on UPF’s Ciutadella campus.  Three renowned experts will give the three plenary sessions featured in the event: Sebastian Martorell (Polytechnic University of Valencia), Mei-Ling Tin Lee (University of Maryland, USA) and Hansjörg Albrecher (University of Lausanne, Switzerland).

Some of the topics to be discussed during the biannual conference, which was first held in 2005, also in Barcelona, with the support of the ISI Committee on Risk Analysis of the International Statistical Institute, are as follows: insurance and financial analysis for insurance  companies;  financial and banking crisis; new developments in insurance products; statistical methods for insurance and finance; demography and life insurance, and economics of insurance and long-term care; biostatistics; clinical trials; analysis of survival and quality of life; financial mathematics; statistical models for industrial reliability; environmental assessment and sustainability, or probabilistic methods of optimization of logistics services.

A tool to avoid danger and improve health

Risk analysis has a work methodology that applies to all areas of life where there is a hazardous situation that can be avoided, with contributions to such diverse fields as environmental pollution, medicine and geopolitical, industrial, infrastructure and financial risks.

Risk management is fundamental for the insurance industry (deeply rooted in Catalonia), for corporate business in general and particularly for health. Regarding this latter sector, through statistics applied to health sciences, the risks of new treatments can be assessed and directed towards personalized medicine.

Risk analysis researchers at the meeting, who are at the service of scientists and biotechnologists, are experts at duly quantifying risk based on the few data that are available at certain times, or at identifying among big data patterns that lead to pinpointing what may constitute a risk to the public.

Catalonia and Barcelona are a global research pole for risk analysis, with a large number of researchers from all Catalan universities dedicated such related disciplines as mathematics, statistics, computer science and data analysis, all possessing great capacity for working in multidisciplinary scientific teams.

Organizing committee and collaborating institutions

The organizing committee of the congress, composed of researchers from different areas of knowledge, is led by Montserrat Guillen (UB), Isabel Serra (UAB), Carles Serrat (UPC), Angel Juan (UOC) and Helena Ramalhinho (UPF), one for each of the organizing universities. All of them are members research groups of international prestige in risk analysis and management and are a reflection of the multidisciplinary approach of the conference, which will enjoy the assistance of students and graduates of the organizing centres.

In addition, several companies and institutions from different sectors whose activities are related with risk are collaborating with the congress. They are Fundación Mapfre (Foundation), Obra Social La Caixa (Foundation), Centre de Recerca Matemàtica (Mathematics Research Centre), Equifax, Societat Catalana d’Estadística (Catalan Statistics Society), Societat Catalana de Matemàtiques (Catalan Mathematics Society), Guy Carpenter, AIS Group, BCN Analytics, Banc Sabadell, Biostatnet, PWC, the UAB Statistics Service, and Institut de Salut Global de Barcelona (Barcelona Global Health Institute).