Lloyd’s announces 2021 Science of Risk prize winner

Lloyd’s today announced that Kimberly Tam from the University of Plymouth has won this year’s Lloyd’s Science of Risk prize.

The prize is awarded to esteemed academics and PhD students who, through their scientific work, further the understanding of risk and insurance. This year there were three categories: cyber, climate change and pandemics. A prize is awarded for the best submission in each class, as well as an overall winner.

Tam’s entry in the cyber category was chosen as the overall winner of the competition. Titled ‘MaCRA: a model-based framework for maritime cyber-risk assessment,’ the paper proposes a dynamic risk assessment model that uniquely takes into account both information technology and operational technology, both of which are prevalent in sectors like transportation and critical national infrastructure.

The judging panel included Dr. Trevor Maynard, Lloyd’s; Alison Robinson, NERC; Iveren Yongo, Travelers; George Beattie, Beazley; Julia Graham, AIRMIC; Ben Oppenheim, Metabiota. The judges chose the winning entry as they collectively felt that the applicability and ease of uptake on the suggested framework for the insurance market was the strongest out of all the themes. They also highlighted the major contribution of the paper in the cyber arena as the research not only aids insurers, but also helps ship owners and operators prioritise, aggregate, and understand the evolving risk landscape.

Dr. Kimberly Tam, University of Plymouth, said: “Receiving the overall 2021 Lloyd’s Science of Risk prize is a big honour. It shows there is real appreciation of the growing threat of cyber-crime, and the importance of addressing the challenges it could pose for the globally important maritime sector. My paper looks at ways the physical and cyber worlds affect each other, and how shifting our concept of risk to be more dynamic can be a useful tool moving forwards in a more connected world.”

Dr. Trevor Maynard, head of Innovation at Lloyd’s said: “The Science of Risk prize is an important route for expert insight to come to the Lloyd’s market and raise awareness of exemplary academic research work of interest to the insurance community. Cyber, climate change and, of course, pandemics are highly relevant and growing areas of risk, so we’re pleased to have received many thought-provoking submissions for this year’s prize. I’d like to congratulate Kimberly on her work, and I’m delighted to award her Lloyd’s Science of Risk prize for 2021.”

Science of Risk 2021

Cyber category:

• Overall winner: Dr Kimberly Tam, University of Plymouth, MaCRA: a model-based framework for maritime cyber-risk assessment (Co-author: Prof Kevin Jones, University of Plymouth)
• Runner up: Edward Oughton, George Mason University, Stochastic Counterfactual Risk Analysis for the Vulnerability Assessment of Cyber-Physical Attacks on Electricity Distribution Infrastructure Networks (Co-authors: Daniel Ralph, University of Cambridge, Rabia Dada, University of Cambridge, Raghav Pant, University of Oxford, Eireann Leverett, Waratah Analytics /University of Cambridge, Jennifer Copic, University of Cambridge,  Scott Thacker, UNOPS / University of Oxford, Simon Ruffle, University of Cambridge, Michelle Tuveson, University of Cambridge,  and Jim Hall, University of Oxford)

Pandemics category:

• Winner: Tim Rogers, University of Bath, Predicting the Speed of Epidemics Spreading in Networks (Co-author: Samuel Moore, University of Warwick)
• Runner up: Charlotte Brown, Resilient Organisations, Accounting for business adaptations in economic disruption models (Co-authors: Erica Seville; Tracy Hatton; Joanne Stevenson; Nicola Smith; and John Vargo)

Climate change category:

• Winner: David Stainforth, London School of Economics and Political Science, Temperature variability implies greater economic damages from climate change, (Co-authors: Raphael Calel, Georgetown University, Washington DC Nicholas Watkins, LSE, Warwick University, Open University, Sandra Chapman, Warwick University)
• Runner up: Nadia Bloemendaal, the Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Generation of a global synthetic tropical cyclone hazard dataset using STORM (Co-author: Ivan Haigh, University of Southampton)