Other News

The Department is delighted to announce that Charlotte Heath Kelly has been promoted to Reader, with effect from 1 June, 2019.

The Department is also very pleased to announce that the University Professorial Promotions Committee have confirmed that both Vicki Squire and Juanita Elias were successful in their promotion to Professor. These promotions are also with effect from 1 June, 2019.

Dr Madeleine Fagan has been granted a 2-year Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust for her new project, ‘Contending Cultures of the Anthropocene: Prospects for Political Mobilization’. The research will explore different 'cultures' of the Anthropocene produced in scientific debates, popular culture, and artistic representation to assess their potential for stimulating political mobilization in response to climate change and environmental degradation.

Cyberattacks and data breach are amongst the top threats facing any business. In the last fortnight, global brand Facebook announced it had suffered an attack from cyber criminals.

Not only does this affect the personal data and credit card details of millions of customers, it also affects the brand and people’s confidence in doing business online. Moreover, the impact of these attacks can ultimately have catastrophic effects on the security of the nation and all organisations are potentially vulnerable.

Professor Tom Sorell in PAIS outlines how the University’s collaboration with the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) can help managers and professionals with managing accelerated digital disruption in their organisation:

“A fourth industrial revolution - blurring lines between the digital, cyber and physical worlds, calls for a fourth generation of risk management. We need to introduce learners to digital as a disruptive force both in products and services, as well as offer clear explanations around cybersecurity risks in business or the public sector.”

The new face of risk?

A recent joint report on risk management perspectives of global corporations – produced by the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) and Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies at Cambridge Judge Business School highlighted cyber security, business continuity and crisis management as the top risks identified by organisations surveyed.

The Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies Academic Director, Professor Daniel Ralph, said:

“Corporations must contend with both internal and external risks that threaten their business models. Their stakeholders are keenly aware of the many potential factors impacting corporate profitability and longevity, thus greater transparency in risk reporting will be expected in the future.

Companies go to vast expense to try to protect their organisations’ from such attacks, digital safety and security ultimately comes down to good enterprise risk management principles and practices. If Amazon, Cathay Pacific, the NHS, Marriott Starwood Hotels and even Uber are vulnerable then so are you and your organisation.”

More about the course

The Digital Risk Management Certificate course has been designed by PAIS, the Warwick University Institute of Cybersecurity and the IRM to help risk practitioners and other professionals to understand how new technologies and digitalisation are disrupting businesses, bringing both risk and opportunity. It will also demonstrate that while the work environment may be changing, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to risk management – existing tools and techniques can be applied and adapted as needed.

Find out more via the IRM and PAIS pages.

In the latest issue of Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, PAIS PhD researcher Ragnar Weilandt argues that Brexit will remove some obstacles to developing a more substantial EU agenda for external action.

Read Ragnar's article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2019.1589093

Dr Edward Page has written an expert comment on the recent global school climate strikes for Politics Reconsidered.

On Friday 15^th March, schoolchildren worldwide took the day off school in order to gather at more than 2000 events to register their protest against inaction on the part of adults, policymakers and world leaders in tackling global climate change. At the epicenter of the climate protests, Greta Thunberg, the founder of the climate strike phenomenon, addressed the crowd in central Stockholm: ‘we are facing an existential crisis, the largest mankind has ever faced. Those of you who have ignored this crisis know who you are and are most guilty. It is not the young who are responsible for this strike. We are striking to have a future and we will not stop.”

Across Sweden, and in over 120 countries, the climate strikers spoke of their hopes and fears and endorsed a range of policy measures and behavioral changes that older generations had resisted: higher taxes for petrol and aviation fuel, fewer trips by plane, phasing out of one-time plastics, and a reduction in meat consumption were all championed. At partner events in Australia, other children demanded a moratorium on new coal-mines and natural gas projects, as well as renewable only energy production by 2030. Writing in The Guardian, Thunberg and others explained that ‘these strikes are happening today… because politicians have failed us. We’ve seen years of negotiations, pathetic deals on climate change, fossil fuel companies being given free rein to carve open our lands, drill beneath our soils and burn away our futures for profit...Politicians have known the truth about climate change and they’ve willingly handed over our future to profiteers whose search for quick cash threatens our very existence’ (Thunberg et al 2019).

Two of the most striking elements of the protests were, first, the diverse but eminently achievable measures that many of the schoolchildren demanded (reductions of meat consumption, decreased use of consumer plastics, shift to renewables, and reduces use of carbon intense energy, are all eminently achievable and have been promoted by many environmental groups and green political parties, if with very limited success; and, second, the focus on the ‘existential crisis’ caused by an inadequate climate response run by, of, and seemingly for, older generations who will not face the consequences of their failure.

Continue reading here: https://politicsreconsidered.net/2019/03/20/youth-climate-strikes-a-climate-game-changer/