Roman Frigg and Richard Bradley from LSE Philosophy will share their expertise in decision making under uncertainty.

The Innovate UK funded project “Hazard Impact Tracker (HIT): Leveraging New Global Cyclone Data to create a Catastrophe Portfolio Management Platform” brings together Maximum Information (a provider of information services around natural hazards), a modelling team based at Reading University, the insurer AON and the charity Red Cross-Red Crescent, with the aim of improving the provision and use of hurricane information in support of parametric catastrophe insurance. The main idea is that parametric insurance needs to be able to draw on hurricane projections that robustly establish when there is a need for a prompt humanitarian intervention. LSE is contributing modelling and decision theory expertise and will be critical to establishing the connection between assessments of the confidence in the hurricane projections licensed by the modelling and the triggering of the interventions.

‘The project aims to use philosophical insights into decision making under uncertainty to build a framework for anticipatory action that has the potential to transform the way in which the humanitarian sector can respond to disasters, and it thereby has the potential to help to reduce the number of lives lost in cyclones. Collaborating with colleagues from MaxInfo, the University of Reading, Aon, and humanitarian agencies such as the International Federation of Red Cross to make this happen is a truly exciting opportunity.’ according to Roman Frigg.

Richard Bradley adds: ‘What makes this project so exciting is that it will be an opportunity to put philosophy of science and decision theory to work at addressing a critical challenge for humanitarian interventions: how and when to act to mitigate the potential impacts of a natural hazard such as a tropical storm or cyclone, when there is a good deal of uncertainty around the nature of the hazard and its impact it will have.’

More information.