Topic description and stories

From cybercrime to earthquakes, influenza to air travel, research on risk and uncertainty reflects issues that are of paramount importance.

Experiment evaluates the effect of human decisions on climate reconstructions

07 Jun 2021

The first double-blind experiment analysing the role of human decision-making in climate reconstructions has found that it can lead to substantially...

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Novel Coronavirus SARS-Cov-2

How accurate were early expert predictions on COVID-19, and how did they compare to the public?

05 May 2021

Who made more accurate predictions about the course of the COVID-19 pandemic – experts or the public? A study from the University of Cambridge has...

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Beyond the pandemic: re-learn how to govern risk

25 Jan 2021

As the pandemic crisis has played out across the world, different governments have taken different approaches to controlling the spread of virus and...

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People sitting inside a restaurant wearing face masks

Free online tool calculates risk of COVID-19 transmission in poorly-ventilated spaces

20 Jan 2021

The vital role of ventilation in the spread of COVID-19 has been quantified by researchers, who have found that in poorly-ventilated spaces, the...

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Man wearing face covering to protect against COVID-19

Existing evidence suggests face coverings do not lead to false sense of security

27 Jul 2020

Existing limited evidence suggests that wearing face coverings to protect against COVID-19 does not lead to a false sense of security and is unlikely...

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UK public ‘most concerned’ about coronavirus – more than Spain or Italy, study suggests

06 May 2020

“Risk perception” among UK population greater than in nine other countries surveyed for latest research.

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Strategic partner: Aviva

29 Apr 2020

A new partnership between Aviva and Cambridge is asking what do advances in technology and data science mean for the future of insurance?

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How different countries are reacting to the COVID-19 risk and their governments’ responses

24 Mar 2020

Researchers at the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication spent the weekend surveying people's attitudes towards the risk of coronavirus...

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Screenshot of the BBC News website via Unsplash

Uncertainty about facts can be reported without damaging public trust in news – study

23 Mar 2020

A series of experiments – including one on the BBC News website – finds the use of numerical ranges in news reports helps us grasp the uncertainty of...

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Number of days per year with mean daily temperatures above 25 degrees - 1979-2018 compared with 2018-2059

New approaches to help businesses tackle climate change

26 Feb 2020

Climate change could add around 20% to the global cost of extreme weather events by 2040, according to early findings from Cambridge researchers, who...

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Banner from a climate strike in Erlangen, Germany

Opinion: Climate change, pandemics, biodiversity loss – no country is sufficiently prepared

01 Nov 2019

Two Cambridge risk researchers discuss how national governments are still stuck on "old problems", and run through the things that should be keeping...

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Flood

Governments are failing to understand global catastrophic risks and need to take urgent action, says new report

13 Aug 2019

Governments are failing to understand the human-driven catastrophic risks that threaten global security, prosperity and potential, and could in the...

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