The COVID-19 outbreak was neither unpredictable nor unforeseen, yet it blind-sided policymakers when it emerged, leading to unprecedented global restrictions on human activity and almost certainly ...triggering the first global economic contraction since WWII. This paper considers the key factors in the eruption of the crisis, as well as the lessons that should be learned from it. The paper begins with an outline of COVID-19's spread, highlighting six key drivers that have determined its severity: the exponential pace of transmission, global interconnectedness, health-sector capacity, wider state capacity, the economic impact of suppression measures, and fragilities caused by the 2008 financial crisis. The paper then proceeds by considering the steps that have been taken in response to five key challenges, corresponding to elements of the IRGC risk governance framework: technical assessment, risk perception, evaluation, management and communication. While acknowledging that only tentative conclusions can be drawn at this early stage, the paper ends with a series of ten recommendations designed to increase preparedness for future crises.
Risk governance (RG) is concerned with processes and principles to improve the management of risk. When implemented to deal with risks from new technologies, it must also contribute to enhancing ...innovation, rather than constraining it, in such a way that innovation itself can also contribute to reducing risks. To increase its relevance to some of the challenges that managers face, RG must constantly adapt to the objectives and priorities of organisations, as well as their supporting values. One of these priorities in Europe and elsewhere is that organisations develop research and innovation in a way that is 'responsible'. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is thus defined by the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme as 'an approach that anticipates and assesses potential implications and societal expectations with regard to research and innovation, with the aim to foster the design of inclusive and sustainable research and innovation'. This article addresses the difficulties of implementing RRI principles in the practice and suggests that an analogy can be made between processes in place for RG and processes that could be developed for RRI. It further suggests that RG could be used to support the development of RRI. The practice of RG can offer relevant ways to assess and manage RRI and provide guidance for the development of procedural and normative RRI. Embedding RRI in practice is a challenge that requires considerations at the organisational and individual level. This article concludes by suggesting questions that researchers can consider to ensure that their work is in line with expectations from both effective RG and RRI.
The increasing incorporation of technology into the health field is leading to greater precision in healthcare; however, advancements in cybersecurity measures are still required. According to a 2016 ...report by IBM and the Ponemon Institute, the frequency of data breaches in the healthcare industry has been rising since 2010 1, and it is now among the sectors most targeted by cyberattacks globally 2. Due to its immutability, the information accessed through health data breaches is of particular interest to criminals 3. Blood type, past surgeries and diagnoses, and other personal health information are contained in an individual’s medical file. As these records include private data such as name, date of birth, insurance and health provider information, as well as health and genetic information, it is not possible to restore privacy or to reverse psychosocial harm when private data are compromised.These sorts of attacks are not only a threat to patients’ identity and finances, but they can also impede hospital operations and place the health and well-being of patients at risk. The United Kingdom’s National Health System hospitals, which suffered from the WannaCry ransomware attacks in May 2017, were forced to delay treatment plans and even to reroute incoming ambulances because they lost access to hospital information systems 4. Among these operational delays and the financial consequences of data breaches and ransomware attacks, cyberattacks have long-term detrimental effects on the reputation and revenue of hospitals and health facilities.In response to these global attacks, the M8 Alliance undertook a project that began with a scoping review on cyberattacks against hospitals 5. The review was a basis for several teleconferences conducted by a multidisciplinary team of experts. A workshop ensued in April 2018 at the bi-annual Geneva Health Forum (GHF). The purpose of these meetings was to exchange perceived threats, to promote interdisciplinary discussion, and to propose practical recommendations for hospitals across the globe. The onsite meeting at the GHF was organized as a World Health Summit Expert Meeting on the cybersecurity of hospitals 6.Here, we describe the most prominent discussions and recommendations from this working group for other security officers, hospital decision makers, vendors, manufacturers, industry representatives, and academics in the field. We begin with some case examples that serve to illustrate what these attacks look like and how health organizations have responded in the past. We then discuss the need to address cybersecurity through the product lifecycle in a preventative and proactive way as well as an approach to cybersecurity that values quality IT at the foundation with a stable application base and strong IT infrastructure. A risk-based approach is recommended, beginning with the identification of at-risk IT assets, followed by management of tradeoffs between risks and benefits, as well as different types of risks. The training of end-users is emphasized, alongside strategies such as vulnerability management and patch management, the controlled and restrictive granting of administrative privileges, and the development of incident response and business continuity plans. Information sharing between stakeholders is also recommended in order to build resilience. We conclude with a discussion on privacy-conscious data sharing and the unique challenges medical devices pose to security.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Regulatory agencies have long adopted a three‐tier framework for risk assessment. We build on this structure to propose a tiered approach for resilience assessment that can be integrated into the ...existing regulatory processes. Comprehensive approaches to assessing resilience at appropriate and operational scales, reconciling analytical complexity as needed with stakeholder needs and resources available, and ultimately creating actionable recommendations to enhance resilience are still lacking. Our proposed framework consists of tiers by which analysts can select resilience assessment and decision support tools to inform associated management actions relative to the scope and urgency of the risk and the capacity of resource managers to improve system resilience. The resilience management framework proposed is not intended to supplant either risk management or the many existing efforts of resilience quantification method development, but instead provide a guide to selecting tools that are appropriate for the given analytic need. The goal of this tiered approach is to intentionally parallel the tiered approach used in regulatory contexts so that resilience assessment might be more easily and quickly integrated into existing structures and with existing policies.
We question the values that inform the artificial intelligence (AI) strategies developed by governments and institutions at the global level. In particular, we investigate the connection between ...governments? and institutions? fundamental values, second-order values associated with AI, and the values emerging from the analysis of AI strategies.
Digitalization is changing society by the increased connectivity and networking that digital technologies enable, such as enhancing communication, services, and trade. Increasingly, policymakers ...within various national governments and international organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are examining the original sustainability policy concepts applied within the Brundtland Report of 1987 through the lens of digitalization. While the growth of a digital economy may increase productivity and benefit local and global economies, digitalization also raises potential sustainability challenges pertaining to social (i.e., the benefits or costs imposed by disruptive digital technologies upon social networks and ways of life, including threats to economic sustainability and the rise of economic disparity) and environmental wellbeing (i.e., natural resource stewardship and concern for future generations) driven by the automation of information processing and delivery of services. Various perspectives have been raised regarding how the process of digitalization might be governed, and national governments remain at odds regarding a single best strategy to promote sustainable digitalization using the Brundtland concept to meet the development needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations (i.e., social and environmental well-being). This paper reviews three governance strategies that countries can use in conjunction with adaptive governance to respond to digitalization sustainability threats: (i) a laissez-faire, industry-driven approach; (ii) a precautionary and preemptive strategy on the part of government; and (iii) a stewardship and “active surveillance” approach by government agencies that reduce the risks derived from digitalization while promoting private sector innovation. Regardless of a state’s digital governance response and how it is shaped by political and institutional realities, adaptive governance approaches are likely necessary to address the economic and social sustainability challenges posed within differing manifestations of digitalization.
Building biosecurity for synthetic biology Trump, Benjamin D; Galaitsi, SE; Appleton, Evan ...
Molecular systems biology,
July 2020, Letnik:
16, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The fast‐paced field of synthetic biology is fundamentally changing the global biosecurity framework. Current biosecurity regulations and strategies are based on previous governance paradigms for ...pathogen‐oriented security, recombinant DNA research, and broader concerns related to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Many scholarly discussions and biosecurity practitioners are therefore concerned that synthetic biology outpaces established biosafety and biosecurity measures to prevent deliberate and malicious or inadvertent and accidental misuse of synthetic biology's processes or products. This commentary proposes three strategies to improve biosecurity: Security must be treated as an investment in the future applicability of the technology; social scientists and policy makers should be engaged early in technology development and forecasting; and coordination among global stakeholders is necessary to ensure acceptable levels of risk.
Biosecurity policies and practices must be updated to accommodate the novel challenges associated with synthetic biology and to maximize technological benefits while minimizing its dual‐use potential. This Commentary proposes three strategies to improve biosecurity.
Various emerging technologies challenge existing governance processes to identify, assess, and manage risk. Though the existing risk-based paradigm has been essential for assessment of many chemical, ...biological, radiological, and nuclear technologies, a complementary approach may be warranted for the early-stage assessment and management challenges of high uncertainty technologies ranging from nanotechnology to synthetic biology to artificial intelligence, among many others. This paper argues for a risk governance approach that integrates quantitative experimental information alongside qualitative expert insight to characterize and balance the risks, benefits, costs, and societal implications of emerging technologies. Various articles in scholarly literature have highlighted differing points of how to address technological uncertainty, and this article builds upon such knowledge to explain how an emerging technology risk governance process should be driven by a multi-stakeholder effort, incorporate various disparate sources of information, review various endpoints and outcomes, and comparatively assess emerging technology performance against existing conventional products in a given application area. At least in the early stages of development when quantitative data for risk assessment remain incomplete or limited, such an approach can be valuable for policymakers and decision makers to evaluate the impact that such technologies may have upon human and environmental health.
There is growing concern that collision risk in low Earth orbit is inadequately managed, necessitating new strategies. Based on discussions held at a multistakeholder workshop organized by EPFL in ...May 2021, this paper presents some challenges, or governance deficits, in the assessment and management of collision risk, and offers some paths for improvements in both domains. Addressing the governance deficits will require enhanced collaboration between states and between public and private actors.
While there is a need to improve risk assessment and conduct thorough cost-benefit analyses of management strategies, achieving a complete picture is elusive, given the complexity of the problem and the range of response strategies available. However, the lack of a complete picture should not be a reason to postpone action, as sufficient information to make decisions regarding some management policies is available. Adopting a multidimensional approach and focusing on measures that have the potential for rapid improvements would help secure stakeholder buy-in and lay the groundwork for pursuing strategies that will likely be the most cost-effective in the longer term.
Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) have the capacity to improve how many companies and organizations conduct transactions or store information securely, among many other potential ...benefits. However, their development and implementation does not occur in a contextual vacuum and instead must adapt to the needs and requirements of their given user. As such, we argue that the governance of DLT and blockchain must be applied against two core questions: who should have access to information within a given DLT/blockchain, and should management of that system be open or restricted/permissioned? While the technology is still emerging, its application to and success within various organizations will be largely dependent upon these key governance concerns.
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