This document discusses managing risk from innovation rather than avoiding it. It argues that innovation has led to many benefits but also risks that must be addressed. Risk is a societal issue that requires open discussion of how benefits and risks are distributed. Specific innovations need to be discussed rather than general technologies. Science can help by providing evidence but many issues involve both science and human values. Effective management of risk from innovation requires addressing these complex issues.

1. Innovation: Managing Risk, Not Avoiding it
Sir Mark Walport
Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government

2. • Wellbeing, health, security &
resilience
• Knowledge translated to economic
advantage
• The right science for emergencies
• Underpinning policy with evidence
• Advocacy and leadership for
science
Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser
2 Innovation: Managing Risk, Not Avoiding It, 17th March 2015

3. GCSA Themed Annual Report
• Topic of report all pervasive in work as
GCSA.
• Growth driven by science and
innovation.
• Innovation to deal with global
challenges (ageing populations, scarce
resources, infectious diseases, carbon
emissions).
• Innovation held back by poorly framed
discussions about risk
• If governance of risk goes wrong, miss
out on major potential benefits, or suffer
needlessly.
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4. Where does risk come in?
Natural
events
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5. Where does risk come in?
5 Innovation: Managing Risk, Not Avoiding It, 17th March 2015
Human

6. National Risk Register
Effusive Volcanic
eruption
Explosive Volcanic
Eruption
Severe Space
Weather
Public Disorder
Disruptive
Industrial Action
Effusive Volcanic
eruption
Explosive Volcanic
Eruption
Severe Space
Weather
Public Disorder
Disruptive
Industrial Action
6 Innovation: Managing Risk, Not Avoiding It, 17th March 2015

7. • Hazard
• Exposure
• Vulnerability
• Risk
• Uncertainty
• Threat
Using common principles about
language to raise the level of
conversations
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8. Innovation has got us where we are
• Widespread electrification
• Improvements in healthcare
• Mass production systems
• Better transport links
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9. We live in a challenging age
• Technological change
• Innovative generation
• Changing demographics
• Ageing
• Interconnectedness
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The innovative world we live in today

10. A growing global population
requires innovation
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The challenges we face include:
• Climate change
• Water security
• Food and agriculture

11. Forms of innovation and risks
1) High level of acceptance but who pays?
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12. Forms of innovation and risks
2) Science meets values
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13. Forms of innovation and risks
3) My risk, your benefit
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14. Forms of innovation and risks
4) Unintended consequences
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15. Holding a Wider Conversation about
Risk
• Risk – a societal issue
• Language
• Values and lenses
• Who benefits and who
carries the risk
• Transparency
• Widening the conversation
is a democratic necessity
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16. What can science contribute?
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17. GMOs
• What organism?
• What gene?
• What purpose?
• The specific application
– not the generic technology
Risk Discussions Require Specificity
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18. The policy challenge:
Viewing difficult issues through varied
lenses
Parkhill et al, Transforming the Energy System – Public Values, Attitudes and Acceptability, 2013 (UKERC)
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19. Science and Values:
Mitochondrial DNA
• Human Fertility and Embryology Authority
• addresses policy issues relating to
fertility regulation
• sometimes ethically and clinically
complex
• Scrupulous care in assessing a wide
range of data and evidence
• Comprehensive programme of public
engagement
• Helped build trust in community at large
• Worked closely with legislators
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20. Regulatory challenges
• Economic regulation – A
systems approach
• Asymmetric incentives
• Encrusted regulation
• Regulation when science
meets values
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21. 21 Innovation: Managing Risk, Not Avoiding It, 17th March 2015
• Investment: Aligning national priorities for
investment on resilience, infrastructure and
innovation with an evidence and risk-based
approach;
• UK coordination: Ensuring a more coherent and
structured approach to assessing impact of risk in
policy, regulation and crisis management;
• Regulators: Putting in place the right governance
structures and incentives in relation to our
regulators and regulated industries;
• Science-based EU: Rooting the approach to
policy and decision-making in EU in robust
scientific evidence.
STOP CONFUSING SCIENCE AND VALUES
Call to Action

22. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. We
apologise for any errors or omissions in the included attributions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that
should be incorporated in future versions of this slide set. We can be contacted through enquiries@bis.gsi.gov.uk .
@uksciencechief
www.bis.gov.uk/go-science