IRDR’s National Committee in France, AFPCN (Association Française Pour la Prevention des Catastrophes Naturelles or AFPCN), together with the Institut pour la Maitrise des Risques organized a workshop at Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers in Paris under the title “La détection de signes précurseurs : le rôle des lanceurs d’alerte” last 4 November 2014.

Sociologist Francis Chateauraynaud, from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, was one of  the speakers. Francis Chateauraynaud is a prominent and visible contributor to public debates on risks and risk communication.  For over a decade now, social scientists have been debating the risks related to public health, environmental change and hazards which are linked to modern technologies.

This workshop addressed some of the issues raised by the 2013 report of the European Environmental Agency entitled “Late Lessons from Early Warnings II”,  illustrating how damaging and costly the misuse or neglect of the precautionary principle can be, using case studies and a synthesis of the lessons to be learned and applied to maximising innovations whilst minimising harms.

This workshop examined the ways in which those responsible for raising alerts act in their respective contexts, managing risk and rising tensions at the interface of science and politics.

To see the programme: Le programme et le bulletin d’inscription