The European Risk Institute

Main objectives

Background

The Institute's tools

A reference area

Port-Jérôme (Picture: IER)

The decision to set up the Institute was taken in the spring of 2001 by the Regional Council of Lower Normandy (the project initiator), together with the government authorities, the University of Caen Lower Normandy, the General Council of the Calvados County, the Honfleur Municipal Community, and the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the Auge and Le Havre districts based on various facts:

	the increasing number and complexity of technological risks;
	the unsuitability of a sectorial approach (i.e. heavy industry, nuclear power, overland transport, sea transport etc.) at the regional level;
	the difficulties involved in taking risk basins into account, because of the administrative divisions;
	the lack of public confidence in experts and decision-makers;
	the lack of an operational link between the needs of managers (government departments, industrialists, communities etc.) and research work in social sciences.