Abstract
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The paper reports on the World Social Science (WSS)
Fellows seminar on Risk Interpretation and Action (RIA),
undertaken in New Zealand in December, 2013. This
seminar was coordinated by the WSS Fellows program of
the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the RIA
working group of the Integrated Research on Disaster
Risk (IRDR) program, the IRDR International Center of
Excellence Taipei, the International START Secretariat
and the Royal Society of New Zealand. Twenty-five
early career researchers from around the world were
selected to review the RIA framework under the theme
of ‘decision-making under conditions of uncertainty’, and
develop novel theoretical approaches to respond to and
improve this framework. Six working groups emerged
during the seminar: 1. the assessment of water-related
risks in megacities; 2. rethinking risk communication;
3. the embodiment of uncertainty; 4. communication
in resettlement and reconstruction phases; 5. the
integration of indigenous knowledge in disaster risk
reduction; and 6. multi-scale policy implementation for
natural hazard risk reduction. This article documents
the seminar and initial outcomes from the six groups
organized; and concludes with the collective views of
the participants on the RIA framework.