Topic description and stories

From cybercrime to earthquakes, influenza to air travel, research on risk and uncertainty reflects issues that are of paramount importance.

Futuristic image of a doctor looking at brain scans

How sure is sure? Incorporating human error into machine learning

10 Aug 2023

Researchers are developing a way to incorporate one of the most human of characteristics – uncertainty – into machine learning systems.

Read more
Screenshot from Covid-19 risk calculator

Interactive tool helps you decide how to protect yourself and others from COVID-19

02 Dec 2021

Is it risky to sing in a choir? What are the risks of eating in a small restaurant? How much difference does it make to open windows or clean...

Read more
Visualisation of droplets from a cough

Two-metre COVID-19 rule is ‘arbitrary measurement’ of safety

23 Nov 2021

A new study has shown that the airborne transmission of COVID-19 is highly random and suggests that the two-metre rule was a number chosen from a...

Read more
Drone and city skyline

Real-time drone intent monitoring could enable safer use of drones and prevent a repeat of 2018 Gatwick incident

15 Sep 2021

Researchers have developed a real-time approach that can help prevent incidents like the large-scale disruption at London’s Gatwick Airport in 2018...

Read more
Patient receives Covid-19 vaccine

Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant were more likely to be admitted to hospital compared to patients with Alpha variant

31 Aug 2021

Largest study to date analysing more than 40,000 COVID-19 cases finds a two-fold increased risk of hospitalisation from delta versus alpha variant...

Read more

Experiment evaluates the effect of human decisions on climate reconstructions

07 Jun 2021

The first double-blind experiment analysing the role of human decision-making in climate reconstructions has found that it can lead to substantially...

Read more
Novel Coronavirus SARS-Cov-2

How accurate were early expert predictions on COVID-19, and how did they compare to the public?

05 May 2021

Who made more accurate predictions about the course of the COVID-19 pandemic – experts or the public? A study from the University of Cambridge has...

Read more

Strategic partner: Aviva

29 Apr 2020

A new partnership between Aviva and Cambridge is asking what do advances in technology and data science mean for the future of insurance?

Read more
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...

Read more
Magma erupting at the Holuhraun lava field in August 2014

‘Crystal clocks’ used to time magma storage before volcanic eruptions

18 Jul 2019

The molten rock that feeds volcanoes can be stored in the Earth’s crust for as long as a thousand years, a result which may help with volcanic hazard...

Read more
PREDICT Prostate

Evidence-based web tool aims to better inform and refine need for treatment in early prostate cancer

12 Mar 2019

A new tool to predict an individual’s prognosis following a prostate cancer diagnosis could help prevent unnecessary treatment and related side...

Read more
Unsplash

Study identifies key challenges when communicating potential policies

14 Jun 2018

Cambridge researchers set out to define a new science for policy communications, with ambitions of finding the “Goldilocks zone” between too much and...

Read more

Pages