Today's research means better protection tomorrow

News
Group, January 10, 2012

Risk lies at the heart of the insurance business. Our responsibility is to use our competencies, our resources and our expertise to contribute to the creation of a society that is better prepared, more secure and stronger over the long term.

In an uncertain world, anticipation has become a necessity: today's research means better protection tomorrow.

Launched in 2008, the AXA Research Fund illustrates our commitment to corporate responsibility centered on a unifying theme: Risk research and education. Today, the Fund finances research projects being carried out in 22 countries by 300 researchers. The Fund offers its support to individual scientists and research institutions of the first rank, including research focused on environmental, life and socioeconomic risks.

Godefroy Beauvallet, head of the AXA Research Fund, reviews the role and the ambition of the AXA Fund, which is to promote innovative research on a global scale.

Highlights:

- 751 institutions based in 51 countries in 2011 (5 times more than in 2008)
- 1 211 applications for funding received in 2011 (+300% par rapport à 2008)
- 85 applications selected in 2011
- 63 million euros distributed since 2008
- 300 researchers, 42 nationalities, 22 countries

To see all the key figures, go to: http://www.axa-research.org/our-mission

Close-up on a project selected in 2011

The Fund is supporting Lunio Lervolino, whose research focuses on industrial risks related to earthquakes and their specific impacts on supply chains. By examining the benefits of preventive early warning systems, Lervolino's approach goes beyond the usual characterization of the risk via economic losses.

The question of the economic consequences of earthquakes is also addressed by other researchers, including Martina Kirchberger. On the faculty at the University of Oxford, her work focuses specifically on the impact of earthquakes on labor markets in Indonesia. Watch this space for our interview with her, conducted during the Pop Days.

Pop Day - Learn to make research accessible to the general public and join the debate

It is often difficult for a researcher just starting out to make his or her research intelligible to everyone. And the ability to do so is critical for convincing a research director, trading ideas with colleagues from other disciplines or making public presentation as an expert. For this reason, the AXA Research Fund sponsors Pop Days to help its grantees explain their work to general audiences.

Want more information? Go to: http://www.axa-research.org/pop-day-socio-economic-risks

AXA Académie des sciences Award - 2011

For the second year in a row, the AXA Research Fund has selected - via the French Académie des sciences - six young biologists to present the results of their research in the world's most prestigious scientific reviews.