Topic description and stories

How different countries are reacting to the COVID-19 risk and their governments’ responses

24 Mar 2020

Researchers at the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication spent the weekend surveying people's attitudes towards the risk of coronavirus...

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Screenshot of the BBC News website via Unsplash

Uncertainty about facts can be reported without damaging public trust in news – study

23 Mar 2020

A series of experiments – including one on the BBC News website – finds the use of numerical ranges in news reports helps us grasp the uncertainty of...

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Number of days per year with mean daily temperatures above 25 degrees - 1979-2018 compared with 2018-2059

New approaches to help businesses tackle climate change

26 Feb 2020

Climate change could add around 20% to the global cost of extreme weather events by 2040, according to early findings from Cambridge researchers, who...

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Banner from a climate strike in Erlangen, Germany

Opinion: Climate change, pandemics, biodiversity loss – no country is sufficiently prepared

01 Nov 2019

Two Cambridge risk researchers discuss how national governments are still stuck on "old problems", and run through the things that should be keeping...

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Flood

Governments are failing to understand global catastrophic risks and need to take urgent action, says new report

13 Aug 2019

Governments are failing to understand the human-driven catastrophic risks that threaten global security, prosperity and potential, and could in the...

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Spotlight on children

01 Nov 2018

Welcome to our new ‘ Spotlight on children ’, a focus on research taking place at the University of Cambridge relating to children and childhood –...

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Toast

Opinion: How dangerous is burnt toast?

23 Jan 2017

A new campaign is warning people that burning some food, such as toast, is a potential cancer risk. Here, the evidence for this claim is explored by...

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BASE Jumping from Sapphire Tower, Istanbul

Opinion: Why danger is exciting – but only to some people

06 Sep 2016

Valerie Voon (Department of Psychiatry) discusses what makes some people want to base jump off a cliff, while others don’t even enjoy a rollercoaster...

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Surgeon

Parent-led tool opens up NHS children's heart surgery data to families

21 Jun 2016

Transparency without accessibility is not enough: stats must be put in context, say researchers.

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Opinion: How Davos power brokers can start tackling major environmental risks

21 Jan 2016

Bhaskar Vira (Department of Geography), Gemma Cranston (Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership) and Jonathan Green (Department of...

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Experts Only

Using experts ‘inexpertly’ leads to policy failure, warn researchers

14 Oct 2015

Evidence shows that experts are frequently fallible, say leading risk researchers, and policy makers should not act on expert advice without using...

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Hong Kong Skyline (cropped)

Cities at risk

07 Sep 2015

New model says world cities face expected losses of $4.6 trillion in economic output over the next decade as a result of natural or man-made...

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