Dr Will Jennings will present on "Managing Olympic Risks."

The task of governing the Olympic Games and the Olympic movement now takes place in an age in which states and societies are increasingly organized in response to risk. At the heart of the risk management in organising the Olympics is the tension between the inherent riskiness of mega-events combined with immense societal, political and organisational pressures for the management of risk. Over time, too, staging the Olympics has become more complex, and riskier, as a consequence of its growing scale and commercial success. Since the 1980s, a profound transformation has occurred in how the Games are organised and governed, with increasing transfer of risk to the market and the growing influence of risk management across organisational functions that range from finance to security to critical infrastructures to public health. The London 2012 Olympics represents the most recent installment of the risk management of everything Olympic.

Dr Will Jennings, Hallsworth Research Fellow, University of Manchester.

Will specialises in the politics and management of risk in major events and recently completed project funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council “Going for Gold: The Olympics, Risk and Risk Management”. His research focuses on the growing influence of risk as an object of planning, operations and communication both in organisation of the Games and in governance of the Olympic movement. His book, Olympic Risks, will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in June 2012.