Anticipatory risk management: steps forward

The domain ‘risk management’ cannot remain confined within the classical conception of risk, or rather of an event that can be calculated in some way (reactive risk management), but must also be extended to the dimension of uncertainty, or rather of ‘authentic uncertainty’ (the dimension of events that cannot be calculated): anticipatory risk management. In order to be able to fully define what Anticipatory Risk Management is, it was necessary to review the historical and current meaning of the terms ‘risk’ and ‘risk management’. The experimentation carried out during the course of ‘Elements of risk management’ within the Master in Social Foresight at the University of Trento led to two major acquisitions. First finding: in the short to medium term, Reactive Risk Management will increasingly become predictive risk management thanks to the technological support especially of artificial intelligence (AI). This will move the limit of authentic uncertainties forward. However, uncertainties will be the progressively decisive area for the medium to long-term governance of organizations. The second finding concerns the practical and concrete implementation in risk management. The most productive way of applying anticipatory fisk management is to understand and implement the process as an articulated futures exercise.