Systems Approaches to Risk Management

Dear Colleagues,

When people manage risk, they are doing so with respect to a particular part of the world. Whether that part be a person, a chemical process plant, a bank, a hospital, a school, or a construction project, these can all be conceived as an example of a system, having many interacting parts that give rise to the features of the system, and the risks that are sought to be managed.

This perspective has been held by risk analysts for many years, and as a result, many approaches for managing risk have been developed that are based in systems theory or systems methods. For example, systems-based risk identification methods include Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) or the Blended Hazard Identification Method (BLHAZID). Alternatively, many modeling approaches, such as system dynamics, agent-based models, sophisticated simulations or Bayesian networks, have also been applied to support risk management efforts.

But ‘the systems approach’ goes much deeper, and affects how people managing risk perceive the world, and therefore, how risk management is conceived of fundamentally.

This Special Issue aims to provide a space to explore what is the state of the field of applying systems approaches to understand, describe, perform, and/or critique risk management theory and practice.

We invite 10-12 articles drawn from original research and/or review articles. The original research articles can be about theory development, presentation of modeling, simulation or data analysis results, or very applied experimental results demonstrating systems-theory informed risk management activities in practice.

We look forward to receiving your submissions for consideration.

Dr. Benjamin J. Seligmann
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Systems is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.