Understanding and dealing with risk and high consequence events is essential to public policy outcomes, across many margins – climate and the environment, national security, natural resource management and the provision of public goods and services. This course provides an understanding of both standard and new approaches to risk and risk measurement, including techniques to determine risk profiles and pathways and ways in which the consequences of ‘nasty surprises’ can be anticipated and potentially controlled. Students will also gain an understanding of how risk management can be more effectively used in government and for public policy, and how resources might best be allocated across different risk-mitigation measures.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:(1) demonstrate an understanding of ‘nasty surprises’ and ways to reduce their occurrence or consequences.
(2) demonstrate critical, constructive and innovative attitude to risk management.
(3) demonstrate an understanding of basic probability measures, measures of risk as probability times consequence and its limitations, and the importance of ‘jumps’ in risk and outcomes.
(4) demonstrate a deep understanding of the economics of risk management, the use of cost-benefit analysis, and optimal approaches to resource allocation across security measures.
(5) analyse the relationships between specific standards and guidelines and the broader functional objective of reducing the potential for surprise (including awareness of the ways in which some approaches to risk management can amplify rather than reduce the potential for surprises by engendering a false sense of security).
(6) demonstrate familiarity with a wide range of methods available to those seeking both established and new approaches to risk and risk management, including basic statistical approaches to risk, the use of Bayesian networks, the importance of ‘jumps in outcomes’ and security intelligence methods.
(7) communicate a complex analysis clearly to a policymaker audience.
Indicative Assessment
(1) Risk analysis of a given case, 750 words -15%(2) Analysis of a risk situation of the student’s choice, 2-2500 words - 60%
(3) Team presentation of an approach to a specific risk occurrence and consequence measure, including best ways to implement a desirable outcome - 20%
(4) Exam - 20%
The ANU uses Turnitin to enhance student citation and referencing techniques, and to assess assignment submissions as a component of the University's approach to managing Academic Integrity. While the use of Turnitin is not mandatory, the ANU highly recommends Turnitin is used by both teaching staff and students. For additional information regarding Turnitin please visit the ANU Online website.
Workload
30 hours class over 6 full days, at one or two -week intervalsPreliminary Reading
Fenton, Naorman and Neil, Martin 2013. Risk Assessment and Decision Analysis with Bayesian Networks, CRC Press
Sunstein, Cass R., 2002. Risk and Reason: Safety, Law and the Environment. Cambridge University Press
Sunstein, Cass R. 2007. Worst-Case Scenarios, Harvard University PressTaleb, Nassim Nicholas, 2007.The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Random House
Fees
Tuition fees are for the academic year indicated at the top of the page.
If you are a domestic graduate coursework or international student you will be required to pay tuition fees. Tuition fees are indexed annually. Further information for domestic and international students about tuition and other fees can be found at Fees.
- Student Contribution Band:
- 1
- Unit value:
- 6 units
If you are an undergraduate student and have been offered a Commonwealth supported place, your fees are set by the Australian Government for each course. At ANU 1 EFTSL is 48 units (normally 8 x 6-unit courses). You can find your student contribution amount for each course at Fees. Where there is a unit range displayed for this course, not all unit options below may be available.
| Units | EFTSL |
|---|---|
| 6.00 | 0.12500 |
Course fees
- Domestic fee paying students
| Year | Fee |
|---|---|
| 2017 | $3420 |
- International fee paying students
| Year | Fee |
|---|---|
| 2017 | $4878 |
Offerings, Dates and Class Summary Links
ANU utilises MyTimetable to enable students to view the timetable for their enrolled courses, browse, then self-allocate to small teaching activities / tutorials so they can better plan their time. Find out more on the Timetable webpage.
