SRA ANZ 2016 Conference
The SRA ANZ held its 2016 Conference on November 22-25 2016 at CQUni's Appleton Institute in Adelaide, South Australia.
The multidisciplinary conference theme was 'Engaging Risk'. A keynote from Professor Stewart Lockie will launch two days of presentations, followed by two days of professional workshops on risk perception, risk analysis and research career development. The conference attracted an array of high quality speakers and presenters. We have provided highlights from the conference below. |
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Engaging Risk 2016 - Conference programme
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08:30 - 10:30
10:00 - 13:00 13:00 - 14:00 14:00 - 17:00 |
Registration
Workshop 1: Quantifying uncertainty with structured expert judgement with Anca Hanea Lunch + Registration for afternoon workshops Workshop 2: Fatigue risk management with Sally Ferguson and Matthew Thomas |
Wine reception
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17:00 - 19:30
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Wine reception with book launch - Social Sensemaking: A Reflective Journal; How we Make Sense of Risk by Robert Sams
(Foyer, CQUni Appleton) |
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08:30 - 09:00
09:00 - 09:30 09:30 - 10:30 10:30 - 10:50 |
Registration
Welcomes from SRA-ANZ president, VC and SRA President Keynote: David Swain, Indirect risks from the growing divide between farmers and consumers Morning tea |
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10:50 - 11:10
11:10 - 11:30 11:30 - 11:50 11:50 - 12:10 12:10 - 12:30 12:30 - 13:30 |
Wardrop, A
Ross, M Thygesen, P Van der Vegt, R Bau, S Lunch |
Regulatory science versus research science: decision making for environmental release of GM plants
New Developments in USEPA Science Assessments Development of a generic risk analysis framework for organisms The relationship between risk governance and public engagement in relation to complex environmental issues So you think you’re an impartial judge? Confirmation bias in conservation decision making under uncertainty |
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13:30 - 14:10
14:10 - 14:30 14:30 - 14:50 14:50 - 15:10 15:10 - 15:30 |
Golding, N
Scott, A Cogger, N Wiethoelter, A Afternoon tea |
Keynote: Mapping the risk of infectious diseases
Avian Influenza – Exposure and Consequence Assessments for Australian commercial chicken farms Psychosocial impact of a Foot-and-Mouth Disease Outbreak: A systematic mapping of the literature Horse Owners in Hendra Hot Spots - Attitudes, Perceptions and Practices in Response to Hendra Virus |
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1530 - 15:50
1550 - 16:10 1610 - 16:30 1630 - 16:50 |
Bearman, C
Abbott, R Bogna, F Lambert, J |
The Y of Decision Context
Exploring Practitioners' Perceptions and Experiences of Safety Concerns During Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy Engaging businesses in OHS risk: Building safety in Small to Medium Sized Enterprises through Risk Profiling Toward Resilience Analytics: If Risks Could Talk, We Could Not Understand Them |
SRA - Conference events
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17:00 - 18:00
19:00 - |
Opening
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08:30 - 09:00
09:00 - 10:00 10:00 - 10:20 |
Registration
Keynote: Stewart Lockie, Imagining risk in an era of rapid social and environmental change Morning tea |
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10:20 - 10:40
10:40 - 11:00 11:00 - 11:20 11:20 - 11:40 11:40 - 13:00 |
Ward, P
Beer, T O'Dwyer, L Campany, B Lunch |
Parental trust in childhood vaccinations: risk, responsibility and alternative rationalities
Integrated Research on Disaster Risk The risks of taking animals when evacuating from natural disasters What do you do when communities don’t believe your risk assessment? |
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13:00 - 13:20
13:20 - 13:40 13:40 - 14:00 14:00 - 14:20 14:20 - 14:40 |
Kontou, T
Kosmadopoulos O'Keeffe, V Naweed, A Afternoon tea |
Parental trust in childhood vaccinations: risk, responsibility and alternative rationalities
The predictive value of self-rated driving ability is dependent on sleep duration and time of day Flexing the boundaries: Nurses' dynamic decision making for safety and care Lookout! |
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14:40 - 15:00
15:00 - 15:20 15:20 - 15:40 |
Trigg, J
Smith, B Seno-Alday, S |
Developing a Scale to Understand Willingness to Sacrifice Personal Safety for Companion Animals
Managing the risk of dingo-human conflict on Fraser Island International Trade Engagement and Food Security Risk |
Prizes
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15:40 - 16:00
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Awarding of conference awards and prizes
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08:30 - 09:00
09:00 - 12:00 12:00 - 13:00 13:00 - 14:00 14:00 - 15:00 15:00 - 16:00 |
Registration
Workshop 3: Psychology of risk perception Lunch + Registration afternoon workshop Workshop 4: Social Sensemaking - A Practical Application of the Social Psychology of Risk with Robert Sams Workshop 5: Putting on your 'public' face: Social media for early and mid career researchers with Kate Ames Workshop 6: Research careers and track records: Success factors for building your research career with Lynette Browning |
Conference keynotes
Indirect risks from the growing divide between farmers and consumers
Keynote from Professor David Swain
Agriculture emerged as a way for hunter-gatherer communities to provide food security. Rather than hunting to procure a lump of meat it made much more sense to keep a food-producing animal to provide readily accessible and nourishing meals. David and Marcia Pimentel in their book ‘Food, Energy and Society’ (2007) show how the increasing amounts of nutritional energy for human diets from agriculture lead to a progression in community structures. With the progression and refinement of farming practices, the majority of people in industrialised nations have nothing to do with producing their food.
The success of modern farming has been achieved through some important innovations. Plant and animal breeding have provided a diversity of crops and animals that are both more efficient and can be specifically selected for adaptation to local conditions. Early farming practices were developed so that there were sustainable ways to manage nutrients, pests and diseases. There were also a number of engineering innovations such as irrigation that enabled more food to be produced. The most recent and single greatest factor that has led to intensive agriculture has been the introduction of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels provide an abundant energy source that can be used in fertilisers, agrochemicals and machinery.
Modern farmers are able to grow more food with less people. A by-product of the intensification of farming is an increase in monocultures (farms that only produce one or two types of crops or food producing domestic animal). Single genotypes are the easiest to manage with limited labour and provide the greatest production opportunities from intensification.
Ecologists have studied stability and risks in natural ecosystems and the underlying knowledge points towards catastrophic failure when ecological feedback loops get broken. Rowley-Conwy and Layton (2011) explored the importance of ecological status and the links to foraging and farming systems. They identified stable and unstable adaptations in farming systems and conclude that modern farming is not an effective strategy to reduce demographic or political risk in farming populations. This paper explores how we might better understand the growing social disconnection between farmers and consumers and how this might inform our understanding of the risks of maintaining food security.
Biography
Professor David Swain's research activities are focussed on the behavioural ecology of livestock in extensive production systems. In particular his work aims to obtain a more complete picture of how behavioural strategies are used to overcome resource limitations. Understanding the link between environmental drivers and evolutionary derived behaviours will enable management intervention to compliment innate livestock behavioural preferences.
Keynote from Professor David Swain
Agriculture emerged as a way for hunter-gatherer communities to provide food security. Rather than hunting to procure a lump of meat it made much more sense to keep a food-producing animal to provide readily accessible and nourishing meals. David and Marcia Pimentel in their book ‘Food, Energy and Society’ (2007) show how the increasing amounts of nutritional energy for human diets from agriculture lead to a progression in community structures. With the progression and refinement of farming practices, the majority of people in industrialised nations have nothing to do with producing their food.
The success of modern farming has been achieved through some important innovations. Plant and animal breeding have provided a diversity of crops and animals that are both more efficient and can be specifically selected for adaptation to local conditions. Early farming practices were developed so that there were sustainable ways to manage nutrients, pests and diseases. There were also a number of engineering innovations such as irrigation that enabled more food to be produced. The most recent and single greatest factor that has led to intensive agriculture has been the introduction of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels provide an abundant energy source that can be used in fertilisers, agrochemicals and machinery.
Modern farmers are able to grow more food with less people. A by-product of the intensification of farming is an increase in monocultures (farms that only produce one or two types of crops or food producing domestic animal). Single genotypes are the easiest to manage with limited labour and provide the greatest production opportunities from intensification.
Ecologists have studied stability and risks in natural ecosystems and the underlying knowledge points towards catastrophic failure when ecological feedback loops get broken. Rowley-Conwy and Layton (2011) explored the importance of ecological status and the links to foraging and farming systems. They identified stable and unstable adaptations in farming systems and conclude that modern farming is not an effective strategy to reduce demographic or political risk in farming populations. This paper explores how we might better understand the growing social disconnection between farmers and consumers and how this might inform our understanding of the risks of maintaining food security.
Biography
Professor David Swain's research activities are focussed on the behavioural ecology of livestock in extensive production systems. In particular his work aims to obtain a more complete picture of how behavioural strategies are used to overcome resource limitations. Understanding the link between environmental drivers and evolutionary derived behaviours will enable management intervention to compliment innate livestock behavioural preferences.
Imagining risk in an era of rapid social and environmental change
Keynote from Professor Stewart Lockie
As a calculus of probability and harm, risk has been as important an idea as any to the configuration of the industrial age. Techniques for risk calculation and management have facilitated market growth and the deployment of novel technologies on hitherto unimagined scales – with numerous benefits for human health and wellbeing. Yet risk remains controversial. From global environmental change to financial and food systems crises there is no shortage of evidence conventional approaches to risk are not sufficient, by themselves, to control the negative side-effects of industrialization. Nor, of course, can we expect them to be – accountability for societal welfare being in no way restricted to risk assessment professions and institutions. Nonetheless, the scale and pace of anthropogenically induced environmental change require of the risk professions a re-imagination of risk oriented towards avoiding the twin threats of: (1) failures of imagination; and (2) failures of coordination. This paper will explore the implications of emerging social and environmental issues at a variety of scales and the unique challenges these raise both for foresight (understanding of what is possible) and for deliberation (shared understanding of what is acceptable and desirable).
Biography
Stewart Lockie is Professor of Sociology and Director of The Cairns Institute at James Cook University, Australia. Prof Lockie is also a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Foundation Editor of the journal Environmental Sociology, and immediate Past-President of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on Environment and Society. He is an environmental sociologist whose research addresses environmental governance and risk in a variety of contexts including climate change, biodiversity conservation, agriculture and food security, the greening of consumption practices, and the social impacts of resource development. Prof Lockie is committed to working across disciplinary boundaries and across the science/policy/layperson divide. He is equally committed to lifting research capacity and impact among the social sciences and humanities in the South Pacific and across the broader tropical region.
More information on Stewart's keynote can be found here.
Keynote from Professor Stewart Lockie
As a calculus of probability and harm, risk has been as important an idea as any to the configuration of the industrial age. Techniques for risk calculation and management have facilitated market growth and the deployment of novel technologies on hitherto unimagined scales – with numerous benefits for human health and wellbeing. Yet risk remains controversial. From global environmental change to financial and food systems crises there is no shortage of evidence conventional approaches to risk are not sufficient, by themselves, to control the negative side-effects of industrialization. Nor, of course, can we expect them to be – accountability for societal welfare being in no way restricted to risk assessment professions and institutions. Nonetheless, the scale and pace of anthropogenically induced environmental change require of the risk professions a re-imagination of risk oriented towards avoiding the twin threats of: (1) failures of imagination; and (2) failures of coordination. This paper will explore the implications of emerging social and environmental issues at a variety of scales and the unique challenges these raise both for foresight (understanding of what is possible) and for deliberation (shared understanding of what is acceptable and desirable).
Biography
Stewart Lockie is Professor of Sociology and Director of The Cairns Institute at James Cook University, Australia. Prof Lockie is also a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Foundation Editor of the journal Environmental Sociology, and immediate Past-President of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on Environment and Society. He is an environmental sociologist whose research addresses environmental governance and risk in a variety of contexts including climate change, biodiversity conservation, agriculture and food security, the greening of consumption practices, and the social impacts of resource development. Prof Lockie is committed to working across disciplinary boundaries and across the science/policy/layperson divide. He is equally committed to lifting research capacity and impact among the social sciences and humanities in the South Pacific and across the broader tropical region.
More information on Stewart's keynote can be found here.
Mapping the risk of infectious diseases
Keynote speech by Dr Nick Golding
Coordinating global public health strategy relies heavily on broad-scale assessments of the risks posed by different infectious diseases. Encoding these risk assessments as high-resolution disease risk maps enables us to answer several important policy questions, including: which diseases pose the greatest risk in a given place, and which diseases threaten the most people globally. Answers to these questions can guide global health policy makers in deciding on which diseases and locations to target their sparse resources.
In highly developed countries, data from national health systems provide detailed and reliable information on disease risk, transmission intensity and how these change over time. However for most of the rest of the world, and for most infectious diseases, data on disease occurrence is very scarce, let alone data on transmission intensity. Spatial variation in reporting of cases is often more related to differences in access to healthcare, and diagnostic facilities, than the true variation in disease risk.
Disease risk mapping therefore uses statistical models to account for sources of bias in order to make quantitative predictions about disease risk at broad spatial scales. These predictions rely on detailed spatial information on environmental, demographic and socioeconomic conditions in addition to the locations of disease reports. Modern disease risk mapping borrows methods from the fields of ecology, machine learning and geostatistics to make the most accurate possible predictions of disease risk, from limited data.
Recent applications of disease risk mapping have quantified the changing risk and burden of malaria, and identified regions where multiple diseases could be controlled using the same interventions. Disease risk maps have also highlighted areas at risk from emerging pathogens such as avian influenza, Ebola and Zika.
As in other areas of research, recent years have seen a rapid increase in availability of, and access to data. Automated online disease reporting, high-throughput genome sequencing and tracking of human movements all provide massive data sources that can help map disease risk. Developing methods that can incorporate these data streams will be crucial to improving disease maps and anticipating novel disease outbreaks.
Biography
Nick Golding is a McKenzie fellow in the Department of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne. Nick trained as an ecologist, drifted into epidemiology, and somewhere along the way became a statistician. He moved to Melbourne earlier this year and is focused on developing new modelling approaches and scientific software to map the distributions of both species and diseases.
Keynote speech by Dr Nick Golding
Coordinating global public health strategy relies heavily on broad-scale assessments of the risks posed by different infectious diseases. Encoding these risk assessments as high-resolution disease risk maps enables us to answer several important policy questions, including: which diseases pose the greatest risk in a given place, and which diseases threaten the most people globally. Answers to these questions can guide global health policy makers in deciding on which diseases and locations to target their sparse resources.
In highly developed countries, data from national health systems provide detailed and reliable information on disease risk, transmission intensity and how these change over time. However for most of the rest of the world, and for most infectious diseases, data on disease occurrence is very scarce, let alone data on transmission intensity. Spatial variation in reporting of cases is often more related to differences in access to healthcare, and diagnostic facilities, than the true variation in disease risk.
Disease risk mapping therefore uses statistical models to account for sources of bias in order to make quantitative predictions about disease risk at broad spatial scales. These predictions rely on detailed spatial information on environmental, demographic and socioeconomic conditions in addition to the locations of disease reports. Modern disease risk mapping borrows methods from the fields of ecology, machine learning and geostatistics to make the most accurate possible predictions of disease risk, from limited data.
Recent applications of disease risk mapping have quantified the changing risk and burden of malaria, and identified regions where multiple diseases could be controlled using the same interventions. Disease risk maps have also highlighted areas at risk from emerging pathogens such as avian influenza, Ebola and Zika.
As in other areas of research, recent years have seen a rapid increase in availability of, and access to data. Automated online disease reporting, high-throughput genome sequencing and tracking of human movements all provide massive data sources that can help map disease risk. Developing methods that can incorporate these data streams will be crucial to improving disease maps and anticipating novel disease outbreaks.
Biography
Nick Golding is a McKenzie fellow in the Department of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne. Nick trained as an ecologist, drifted into epidemiology, and somewhere along the way became a statistician. He moved to Melbourne earlier this year and is focused on developing new modelling approaches and scientific software to map the distributions of both species and diseases.
