A new European network called Expert Judgment Network: Bridging the Gap Between Scientific Uncertainty and Evidence-Based Decision Making has been funded. Led by a team from the Department of Management Science and chaired by Prof Tim Bedford, this is the first time that the University of Strathclyde has been successful in the European COST programme – a highly competitive programme.
Governments and businesses have to make decisions in the face of risks and uncertainties, but time pressures too often hamper the collection of large-scale datasets that might help reduce those uncertainties. Structured Expert Judgement aims to provide a proper evidence base that enables decision makers to obtain reasonable uncertainty assessments in a timely and defensible way. The best methods of Structured Export Judgement ensure that expert data is collected in a way that minimizes potential biases and, crucially, tests expert performance.
The network aims to spread the use of Structured Expert Judgement in business and policy, and to help focus research into improved methodologies and new application areas. It involves representatives from 20 European countries, and will organise a series of conferences, workshops, training activities events across Europe in the next 4 years. The kick-off conference is taking place at Strathclyde on April 2-4. This meeting will highlight some of the successful applications of Structured Expert Judgement in a wide variety of business and scientific risk settings, and will highlight open research problems. More information about the network can be found here.