Journal of Catastrophe Risk and Resilience: Invited Articles

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A key barrier to increasing openness in catastrophe modelling is the lack of a natural home for publication of developments, research, and results. While academic journals possess the core tenets of a suitable publication – most importantly, external expert review – their verbosity, novelty criteria, and costs for authors pose a formidable barrier to publication by non-academic catastrophe researchers. In particular, practitioners are not typically given the bandwidth to produce full-length academic manuscripts by their employers (in contrast to most academics whose roles are tailored towards publishing their work). Even without such inhibitors, few journals field submissions of practitioner-relevant scope, making quality catastrophe research somewhat forlorn.

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A number of commercial entities, as well as academics, carry out relevant catastrophe research, but prohibitive publication options render it inaccessible. Until trusted and transparent publication of results becomes the norm, it is difficult to see how catastrophe modelling will continue on its trajectory of openness. While the provision of a journal is certainly no panacea, giving trailblazers an outlet for their work will court and encourage yet further innovation.

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For these reasons, a group of leading catastrophe modelling professionals across academia and industry are setting up the Journal of Catastrophe Risk and Resilience: a diamond open-access (free to authors and readers), peer-reviewed journal for practitioner-relevant catastrophe research. The journal will field a diverse array of contributions related to natural hazard risk in a variety of forms:

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1. Traditional, long-form academic articles of several thousand words, presenting a novel idea, validating the methods, and contextualising results in the wider literature.

2. Short-form summary articles of several hundred words, with lower requirement for novelty and less need for laborious contextualisation and literature review, to enable researchers with limited scope from their employers to publish.

3. Review articles, which may contain no original research but instead provide a broader perspective on a topic of interest.

4. Comment pieces, solicited by the editorial board, by authoritative figures to provoke discussion and set a wider research agenda.

 

The journal aims to:

 

1. Provide a forum for experts in both academia and industry to publish the methods and results of their research

2. Remove some of the barriers to publication erected by traditional academic journals

3. Foster a spirit of collaboration and methodological openness amongst industrial practitioners

4. Make relevant academics visible to an industry which can consume and utilise their research

5. Steer proximal academic research towards industry demands

6. Have a tangible impact on defining and maintaining best practice in the industry

7. Command a dedicated readership amongst catastrophe researchers, model vendors, and academic geoscientists

8. Cultivate new avenues of interdisciplinary collaboration in academia to strengthen the link – fundamental to catastrophe risk research – between physics- and economics-adjacent fields

 

The organisers of this initiative, who will form the inaugural editorial board, are:

 

Dr. Richard Dixon (Inigo Insurance / University of Reading)
Dr. Kelly Hereid (Liberty Mutual)
Dr. Thomas Loridan (reask)
Dr. Tom Philp (Maximum Information / London School of Economics)
Dr. Cameron Rye (MS Amlin)
Prof. Len Shaffrey (University of Reading)
Prof. Adam Sobel (Columbia University)
Dr. Mesut Turel (Arch Insurance)
Dickie Whitaker (Oasis Loss Modelling Framework)
Dr. Oliver Wing (Fathom / University of Bristol)