Risk Management Society

A professional organization devoted to risk management is the Risk Management Society (RIMS). The acronym reflects the former name of the organization. Risk and Insurance Management Society. 

RIMS, the Risk Management Society, defines enterprise risk management as a strategic business discipline that addresses a full spectrum of risks. It explains the broader perspective compared to risk management in several ways ... 

Covernment and regulatoi y decisions. Sometimes these decisions are based on some type of quantitative risk analysis, and they provide some guidance on society s expectations with regard to risk management. In some cases these decisions will also include some kind of cost-benefit analysis. The current political climate in the United States may encourage more extensive use of risk analysis in the establishment of future regulations. 

George L. Head, The Risk Management Process, Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc., New York, NY, 1978. 

Richardson, M.L. (ed.) (1992) Risk Management of Chemicals, Royal Society of Chemistry, London. 

Rasmussen J., 1997. Risk management in a dynamic society a modelling problem, Safety Science Vol. 27No. 2/3, pp. 183-213. 

Rasmussen J., Svendung I., 2000. Pro-active Risk Management in a Dynamic Society, Swedish Rescue Services Agency, Karlstad. 

American Association of Retired Persons American Health Care Association American Hospital Association American Medical Association American Nurses Association American Pharmaceutical Association American Society of Health-System Pharmaeists American Society for Healthcare Risk Management Department of Veterans Affairs Food and Drug Administration Generic Pharmaceutical Industry Association Institute for Safe Medication Practices... 

Ultimately, the credibility—for scientists, stakeholders and society in general—of the data and assessments on which critical risk management decisions are based owes much to the underlying tenets of data quality discussed in this document. Credibility is a basic element of risk communication and social trust and, in turn, is a determining factor in risk acceptance and risk management. 

Some believe that risk assessment is not complex or difficult while others believe that it is complicated and hard to understand. Irrespective of a person s exposure to the risk assessment process, risk assessment procedures are complicated and complex beyond the scope of individual person s input. Simply put, risk assessment is both a science and an art. Risk assessment has properties of science, because the process totally depends on data generated by good scientific practice. The difficulty is, while scientists can possibly wait until final conclusions are reached using agreed scientific methods, the society and the risk manager cannot wait that long. The science and art aspect of risk assessment is illustrated in the table below. 

For politics and society to come to reasonable decisions about risks in public interest, it is not enough to consider only the results of (scientific) risk assessment. In order to understand the concerns of people affected and various stakeholders, information about both risk perceptions and the further implications of the direct consequences of a risk is needed and should be taken into account by risk management.3... 

The constraints of science, technology and society (e.g., risk identification, efficacy of risk management control risks, tolerability of risk). 

An approach has been developed to screen chemicals for prioritisation for risk management, based on their likely damage to human health, the environment and society. This approach is developed further, with illustrative examples, in the next chapter. 

Calvin, G. (1992). Risk Management Case History - Detergents, in Risk Management of Chemicals, M.L. Richards (Ed.), The Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, UK, pp. 120-136. 

Government risk managers now often consider both regulatory and voluntary approaches to reducing risks, as society is challenged to solve more complex risk problems with limited resources. 

The Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) was established in 1981 as a nonprofit organization to foster and promote (1) knowledge and understanding of risk analysis techniques and their applications (2) communication and interaction among individuals engaged in risk analysis (3) application of risk analysis and risk management techniques to the hazards and risks to which individuals and populations are exposed (4) dissemination of risk analysis information and concepts to all interested individuals (5) advancement of the state-of-the-art techniques in all aspects of risk analysis and (6) integration and interaction of the various disciplines involved in risk analysis. 

L. Wilson and D. McCutcheon, Industrial Safety and Risk Management, The Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering, Ottawa, 2003. p. 176. 

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