A message from Vice Chancellor for Research Penny Gordon-Larsen
Dear Colleagues,
I am excited to announce the launch of the Institute for Risk Management and Insurance Innovation (IRMII), a new institute within the Office of Vice Chancellor for Research. The institute will act as a research and innovation hub, bringing together investigators from multiple disciplines to address the financial risks arising from a growing number of threats to our state and beyond, ranging from extreme weather to cybersecurity. UNC-Chapel Hill is a world leader in translating extreme environmental events into financial risk and now seeks to expand into a wider range of emerging perils.
A major mission of IRMII will be to accelerate research on evaluating and managing risk. The institute will use this research as a platform for creating a pipeline of uniquely trained students ready to enter the risk management and insurance industry. IRMII will provide interdisciplinary training to doctoral and master’s students focused on industry challenges. The institute is also developing, in collaboration with its industry partners, an undergraduate minor in risk management that will focus on preparing students to use cutting-edge modeling and data science techniques to better understand society’s current and emerging risks.
The institute will receive significant support from industry, with over 25 firms having made financial commitments that will fund research and training activities. Industry partners will sit on IRMII’s Industry Advisory Board which will be chaired by Carolina alumnus Tony Ursano, who is a co-founding managing partner of the firm Insurance Advisory Partners.
IRMII will be led by Greg Characklis, W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering within the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Characklis is also the founding director of the Center on Financial Risk in Environmental Systems (CoFiRES) which will be absorbed into the new institute and serve as a platform to facilitate IRMII’s rapid development.
IRMII will be a powerful force for new ideas and beneficial change for the risk management and insurance industry, with the ability to address real-world problems in a comprehensive manner. These efforts will help attract external funding to the University for this important work and will yield tangible benefits for the citizens of North Carolina. As such, IRMII has the full support of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees (BOT), with BOT Chair John Preyer citing it as an example of “a program that both expands knowledge and prepares our students to be strong contributors to the 21st century workforce.”
Please join me in celebrating the launch of our new institute and congratulating Greg on this new endeavor.