Dr. Alex Sixie Cao (currently Postdoc at Empa and ETH Zurich) will join as an Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore - from July 2026. We are currently recruiting multiple PhD students & Postdocs. NTU CEE ↗
Risk acceptance and safety
From society to safety: how socioeconomic and demographic changes shape risk acceptance.
We study how society defines acceptable levels of safety under changing climatic, socioeconomic, and demographic conditions. Our work examines how risk acceptance evolves over time, how safety targets should adapt to new realities, and how to balance safety, sustainability, and resource use across generations.
Key questions
- How do climate change and shifting demographics influence acceptable safety levels?
- How should safety targets evolve when future conditions are uncertain?
- How can we balance immediate resource constraints with long-term societal well-being?
- What level of safety is justified when considering intergenerational responsibility?
Research themes
Time-dependent safety levels
We model how acceptable safety changes under evolving climatic, socioeconomic, and demographic conditions.
Intergenerational perspective
We assess how we can balance short-term needs with long-term societal well-being and responsible use of resources.
Safety, sustainability, and resource use
We explore how environmental impact, material demand, and climate change projections influence safety requirements.
Ethics and societal preferences
We investigate how we can consume resources in a fair and equitable manner in an intergenerational perspective.
Code calibration
We use our models to investigate how the partial safety factors in design standards and guidelines may look like in the future.
Methods and tools
Our work combines structural engineering with socioeconomics and utility theory:
- Assessment of time-dependent risks and societal preferences.
- Scenario-based evaluations of future trajectories, including climate change.
- Frameworks for defining transparent and rational safety targets.
- Analysis of safety, sustainability, and long-term resource implications.