Risk-based standards: Integrating top-down and bottom-up approaches

In response to rapidly changing threats posed to increasingly complex socio-technical systems, many in the government and private sector have called for protection through risk-based standards. However, given the nature of these dynamic and uncertain threats, traditional risk assessment techniques may not be sufficient. Instead, there is a critical need for an integrated approach in which decision analytic techniques are used to assess evidence-based data with the values and preferences of decision makers. We point to three examples in the fields of nuclear power regulation, nanotechnology, and cybersecurity, where risk-based approaches (bottom-up) have been combined with decision analysis (top-down) to guide decision makers toward risk management policies that manifest both the best available evidence and the plurality of values within a society. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York (outside the USA).