The USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies has embarked on a long-term effort to create an interdisciplinary program on environmental risk in the context of business decisions. The goal of this effort is to:

Create an interdisciplinary research group through the University of Southern California, Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, to explicitly link the study of science, engineering, medicine and business to the technical assessment of risk, return and uncertainty in the insurance, reinsurance, banking and other risk-related and environment-related industries.

This program is both an academic and research program within the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. In the broadest sense, we study environment-related risk within the complex business environment. We are working to create a risk analysis framework that provides a living link between advances in science and the decision process in business. The initial program is focussed on both:

1) environment-related risks such as hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural hazards that affect the property insurance and reinsurance industry and

2) pollution and health risks that affect health and business liability decisions. We work to study these in an integrated fashion that also includes research on the entire spectrum of financial risk issues. The scale encompasses both the global and regional.

This program initially includes a diversity of faculty from USC and, through the interaction with specific research centers, leading scientists from other universities. We will take advantage of the many existing strengths in the USC College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and the Schools of Engineering, Medicine and Business. Some of the existing participants in our programs include members of the following groups and we will work to build stronger links with each as our program grows:

• Southern California Earthquake Center
• The Risk Prediction Initiative (Hurricanes & Climate)
• USC Sea Grant Program
• Southern California Environmental Health Center
• USC Institute for Innovative Risk Reduction Research
• USC Marshall School of Business
• USC Environmental Studies Program
• USC Biological Science Department
• USC Earth Science Department
• USC Geography Department
• The Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP)
• Southern California Marine Institute