Nick Pidgeon is professor of environmental psychology at Cardiff University, where he directs the interdisciplinary Understanding Risk Research Group (see www.understanding-risk.org). His research looks at public perception and acceptability, risk communication, and the governance of environmental and technological risks, including nuclear power, renewable energy, climate change, and the emerging issues of nanotechnology and climate geoengineering. He is particularly interested in how trust in risk regulation can be built and in mechanisms for public involvement in responsible innovation processes for controversial emerging technology and risk issues. He was a member of the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering nanotechnology study group in 2004 and is currently a science adviser to both the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He authored the chapter “Risk Perception” in the 1992 UK Royal Society report Risk Analysis, Perception and Management, and is co-editor with Roger Kasperson and Paul Slovic of The Social Amplification of Risk (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and with the late Barry Turner of the 2nd edition of Man Made Disasters (Butterworth Heinemann, 1997).
