Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Ortwin Renn (male), serves as full professor and Chair of Environmental Sociology and Technology Assessment at the University of Stuttgart (Germany). He directs the Stuttgart Research Center for Interdisciplinary Risk and Innovation Studies at the University of Stuttgart (ZIRIUS) and the non-profit company DIALOGIK, a research institute for the investigation of communication and participation processes in environmental policy making. Renn also serves as Adjunct Professor for “Integrated Risk Analysis” at Stavanger University (Norway) and as Affiliate Professor for “Risk Governance” at Beijing Normal University.

Ortwin Renn has a doctoral degree in social psychology from the University of Cologne. His career included teaching and research positions at the Juelich Nuclear Research Center, Clark University (Worcester, USA), the Swiss Institute of Technology (Zuerich) and the Center of Technology Assessment (Stuttgart). Among others he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of EU President Barroso, the Scientific and Technical Council of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) in Lausanne, the National Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management of the People’s Republic of China and several national and international Academies of Science. In the past he served on the panel on “Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making” of the U.S.-National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. (from 2005-2007) and on the German Federal Government’s “Commission on Energy Ethics” (2011). In 2012 he was elected president of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA).

His honours include an honorary doctorate from the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), an honorary affiliate professorship at the Technical University Munich, the “Distinguished Achievement Award” of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) and several best publication awards. In 2012 the German Federal Government awarded him the National Cross of Merit Order in recognition of his outstanding academic performance. Renn is primarily interested in risk governance, political participation as well as technical and social change towards sustainability. Since 2012 he co-directs together with Armin Grunwald the German Helmholtz-Alliance: “Future infrastructures for meeting energy demands. Towards sustainability and social compatibility“. Renn has published more than 30 books and 250 articles, most prominently the monograph “Risk Governance” (Earthscan: London 2008).

Aleksandar (MSc. ME, PhD) has worked for industry, research, EU institutions and universities, in a number of different countries, such as Belgium and Italy (EU, university), Germany (industry, research, university), France (university), USA (industry, university, research), etc. Since 2001, he is the director of the Steinbeis Advanced Risk Technologies Group in Stuttgart, Germany providing consultancy in the areas of risk assessment and risk management for industry and public sector. He is the CEO of the European Institute for Risk & Resilience Management (EU-VRi), bringing together about 50 industrial and research organizations active in the area of applied risk and resilience management, full professor at Steinbeis University Berlin (Technical Risks) and his other current and previous assignments include Italy (Politecnico di Milano), France (Ecole Polytechnique), Japan (University of Tokyo), USA (La Jolla), Serbia, Croatia and China.

Aleksandar’s main contributions to risk research and advancement of the respective state-of-the-art have been related to (a) industrial “risk projects”, (b) academic research in the area of risk (especially emerging risks and resilience) and (c) European and international risk standardization.

Aleksandar has a long-year professional experience as project manager of many large international industry “risk projects”, dealing with risk management, engineering risks, innovation risks, risk governance for new technologies, use of big data for risk analysis and related areas, etc. Main clients in these projects have been the EU, national governments (Norway, Belgium, Japan…), industry, utilities, insurances companies, R&D and academia. Main topics of the current projects deal with risk management in industry (e.g. for insurance, power, process) and include HSSE (Health, Safety, Security, Environment), RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance), RBI (Risk-Based Inspection. Examples of the industrial projects are, e.g., the assessing risk of 40,000 MWe installed electric power capacity for Eskom in South Africa (about $10 million) or assessing risks refineries in Gazprom. Sample EU projects managed by him include iNTeg-Risk (www.integrisk.eu-vri.eu, 19.3 million €, 80+ partners), or SmartResilience (Resilience Indicators for critical infrastructures in Europe, www.smartresilience.eu-vri.eu).

In the area of academic risk research Aleksandar has been pioneering the risk-oriented probabilistic structural mechanics in 1980’s (stochastic finite element method), introduced risk methods in the engineering analysis of remaining life in 1990’s, developed new methods for risk-based optimization of inspection and maintenance in the industrial plants (power and process primarily). He is a coauthor of the milestone study/book on Future Global Shocks of the OECD (2013), author of 7 books and over 170 publications (www.researchgate.net/profile/Aleksandar_Jovanovic5).

As a “risk practitioner” in the area of international standardization, A. Jovanovic has contributed to the global risk community by a number of actions. He is the Convener and main author of:

(a)     European standard CEN-CWA 15740:2008 (“Risk-Based Inspection and Maintenance”),

(b)     European standard EN16991:2018 (“European Risk-Based Inspection Framework”)

(c)     CEN-CWA 16449:2013 (“Management on New Technologies-Related Risks” also appeared as DIN SPEC

(d)     ISO standard ISO 31050 “Management of emerging risks for enhanced resilience” – has involved SRA into the process, as an Organization in Liaison to ISO.

He act as the Liaison Officer in the ISO 31000 (risk management) ISO Committee, as a member of the Committees TC292 (security) and ISO 31010 (risk assessment methods , and as convener for the new ISO 31050 standard (https://committee.iso.org/sites/tc262/home/projects/ongoing/iso-31022-guidelines-for-impl-2.html).

In 2019, A. Jovanović was one of the main “Organizing Chair” of the SRA World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa (https://srawc.wpengine.com/congress-organization/).

Walter Bogaerts is professor of Corrosion & Materials Engineering at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium) and guest professor at the University of Gent. He holds appointments in the departments of Chemical Engineering, Sustainable Chemical Process Technology, and Metallurgy & Materials Engineering. He also teaches in KU Leuven’s post-graduate program on Safety Engineering and is a member of the Steering Committee of Belgium’s interuniversity program on Nuclear Engineering (BNEN).

He graduated summa cum laude as a chemical engineer from the University of Leuven (1977) and completed his PhD on corrosion problems in the energy sector (nuclear, geothermal) in 1981. He further specialized at Cambridge University (1983-84) and Stanford Research Institute (SRI International, 1985) with British Council, NATO and Fulbright fellowships. In 1988-1989 he was the founder of a pioneering university spin-off company dealing with advanced informatics and artificial intelligence applications in the field of materials and corrosion engineering (MetaLogic n.v.). With his team he also authored the first “e-books” in this field, e.g. for Elsevier Science Publishers (1992, 1996) and NACE International (2000). For this work he received the T.J. Hull Award.

Aside from his scientific and academic career, prof. Bogaerts has been CEO of Belgium’s central nuclear waste treatment facility (Belgoprocess n.v.) and since 2018 he is the ‘non-executive general director’ of EU-VRi. He runs his own engineering company and is a regular consultant for the European Commission and for the international chemical and nuclear industry.

Medical Doctor (1979), M. Sc. (1982), Specialist in Hygiene and Microbiology (1986), Ph. D. (1995). During the period 1980 – 1991 she worked at Institute for Health Protection of Serbia (Belgrade, Yugoslavia), Department of public health and Environmental Hygiene (U.S.S.L. 2, Cittiglio, Italy), Institute of Hygiene at the Medical School of the University of Milan (Italy), Institute of Hygiene, Univ. of Tübingen (Germany).
Since 1992 she is employed at State Health Agency Stuttgart, Germany. The main topics of her work are:

• Risk assessment and monitoring of health effects associated with chemical and biological environmental and occupational pollution.
• Planning and performing of projects related to heavy metals, THM´s in swimming pools, tar based parquet adhesive, biological agents (moulds, mites), and noise.
• Participation in the EU project (NNGL = Night time Noise Guideline, ECOHEIS)
• Providing consultancy for the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and public health departments in Baden-Württemberg as well as for other authorities, specialist and public in the matters of public health. 
• Organization and leading of courses in the field of occupational and environmental medicine

November 2006 - December 2009, part time: Leading of EU-VRi Management Office. European Virtual Institute for Integrated Risk Management EU-VRi Stuttgart is an EEIG = European Economic Interest Grouping (www.eu-vri.eu).

April 2002 onwards, part time: Support in the leading of Steinbeis Transfer Centres Advanced Risk Technologies (www.risk-technologies.com). Consultancy in the areas of health risk assessment associated with chemical and biological environmental and occupational pollution. Health risk assessment of new technologies.

September 2014 onwards Director of the WHO Colaborating Centr "Housing and Health"

Bastien CAILLARD graduated in 2010 as Engineer in Mechanical Engineering (Ecole des Mines d’Alès, FR). The same year, he obtained a Master's degree in Management of the Organization (mention: Management of the International Projects) of the Louis Pasteur University (Strasbourg, FR). Since 2010, he is working as project manager at EU-VRi, the European Virtual Institute for Integrated Risk Management, in Stuttgart (Germany), mainly on research projects funded by FP7 and H2020 Framework Programmes (European Commission) and in close collaboration with well-known industrial companies, laboratories and universities. He has developed expertise in management of projects in the field of risks management in relation with problematics going from new energies (biogas,energy storage…) to aging of infrastructures, but also related to new technologies such as nanotechnologies. Since 2010, he is also member of the secretariat of the European Technology Platform on Industrial Safety (ETPIS).

Marjan Jelic is a software developer with more than 20 years’ experience in web, application and back-end development. Since September 2016, he works as a CIO & IT Specialist and Support in IT department of the Steinbeis Advanced Risk Technologies in Stuttgart Germany. His responsibilities are software solutions (tools) in SmartResilience, cALIBRAte, ENCIRCLE, PANBioRA and SILICOFCM projects. Before, he has been a member of team in ResiStand and RiskRadar China project. Marjan Jelic holds a Bachelor of Science degree (B.Sc) in Computer Science from the University of Novi Sad (Faculty of Technical Science in Zrenjanin), Serbia.

Ms. Pfau is involved in the activities of the Steinbeis University Berlin, Transfer Institute Advanced Risk Technologies, which is offering Training and Certification in the area of Risk Engineering and Management. Ms. Pfau was responsible for implementing certification courses in European countries, as well as in South Africa and China, in cooperation with local Universities and Industry. More than 900 certificates of successful training have been provided to South African participants in the past years.

Previously she was engaged by the Department of Environmental Sociology and Technology Assessment of the University of Stuttgart and the National Aeronautics and Space Research Centre of Germany (Department of Systems Analysis and Technology Assessment). Ms. Pfau attained a Master’s Degree in „Empirical Political and Social Research and Analysis” with a focus on Sociology of Risks and Technology.