Wolfgang Kröger
Wolfgang Kröger (born August 27, 1945 in [Herne], Germany) has been full professor of Safety Technology at the ETH Zurich since 1990 and director of the Laboratory of Safety Analysis simultaneously. Before being elected Founding Rector of International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) in 2003, he headed research in nuclear energy and safety at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI). After his retirement early 2011 he became the Executive Director of the newly established ETH Risk Center. He has both Swiss and German citizenship and lives in Kilchberg/Zürich. His seminal work lies in the general area of reliability, risk  and vulnerability analysis of large-scale technical systems like nuclear power plants of different types and complex engineered networks like power supply systems, the latter coupled to other critical infrastructure and controlled by cyber-physical systems. He is known for his continuing efforts to advance related frameworks, methodology, and tools, to communicate results including uncertainties as well as for his successful endeavor in stimulating trans-disciplinary and trans-sectional cooperation to improve governance of emerging systemic risks. His contributions to shape and operationalize the concept of sustainability and - more recently - the concept of resilience are highly valued. Furthermore, he is  in engaged in the evaluation of smart energy systems and future technologies, including new ways of exploiting nuclear energy, and cooperative automated vehicles as a cornerstone of future mobility concepts. Professor Kröger is an individual member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Science and heads the topical (SATW) platform “Autonomous Mobility”; he has been awarded “Distinguished Affiliate Professor” by Technische Universität München in 2012., and "Senior Fellow" of IASS Potsdam. Inter alia he is member of the international review group of the Japanese Nuclear Safety Institute (JANSI), the project of three German academies on “Energy Systems of the Future” (ESYS ), and notable advisory boards. Most recent publications/books are dedicated to the vulnerability of interdependent critical infrastructure systems and to make them more resilient as well as to issues of energy systems. Education and professional life. Wolfgang Kröger studied mechanical engineering, specialized on nuclear technology, at the RWTH Aachen University, completed his doctorate in 1974, also at RWTH Aachen, and his habilitation thesis in 1986, which focused on safety requirements for urban-sited nuclear power plants. He joined the Institute for Nuclear Safety Research at National Research Center Jülich (FZJ, former KFA), Germany, in 1974, led projects on underground siting  of nuclear power plants and on application of PSA-methodology to HTGR (High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor). He became deputy and finally acting director (1987) of that institute before he accepted the call to ETH Zurich and, simultaneously, became also research department head and member of the board of directors at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in 1990. In 2003 he gave up the position at PSI and served as Founding Rector of the IRGC Geneva,and in parallel directed the Lab of Safety Analysis of ETH’s department of mechanical and process engineering (MAVT). After his retirement early 2011 to  end of 2014 he was mandated founding executive director of the ETH Risk Center and established the project of Future Resilient Systems at CREATE in Singapore. At present he does research on more resilient socio-technical systems and, more sustainable (acceptable) energy technologies including novel super-safe nuclear concepts and smarter, more resilient grids.He is engaged in a project on learning from past nuclear events, contributes to safety assessment and validation of autonomous vehicles and works as advisor to scientific institutions. Achievements. Scientific research. Wolfgang Kröger has published slightly more than 40 papers, books, and edited volumes only in  the last 10 years. He is co-editor of three distinguished journals. His scientific research deals with basic methodology and practical applicability, low probability-high consequence risks and the question of acceptable/tolerable safety, all in relation to complicated single facilities including nuclear power plants and large-scale complex cyber-physical systems. Five contributions are highlighted here: National and international cooperation. Wolfgang Kröger recognized early on that the classical technical risk analysis has to be enriched and modified to changing situations in our modern society. At an early stage far-reaching changes of the character of large risks to so -called systemic risks, triggered by an increasing integration and globalization of systems, became obvious and he realized the urgent need to develop new approaches to deal with such risks. Supported by the Swiss Government, he put the management of man-made technological, trans-boundary risks into a broader context by establishing the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) as an independent organization. Founded in 2003, the IRGC follows a trans-sectorial and multi-disciplinary approach and promotes multi-stakeholder participation, where appropriate. As its Founding Rector he has provided valuable contributions to its undeniable success to date. From mid-2011 to end  of 2014 he helped to build up the ETH Risk Center, which pools the expertise of professors from various departments. Its joint research output should support society and industry to better manage risk portfolios and design novel solutions for collaborative risk reduction and resilience enhancing schemes. Furthermore, he accountably prepared the proposal for a huge integrated research project on Future Resilient Systems, integrating combinations from ETH and top Singaporean universities; it was finally approved by the National Research Foundation of Singapore (NRF) for funding and launched in November 2014. He joined the Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) Potsdam as  Senior Fellow to help framing the concept of resilience and systematic risks in 2018. In the recent past, he contributed to ESYS by active participation in working groups on (de-)centralized energy systems and resilience of digitalized power systems. Further, the established a multi-stakeholder platform on Future Mobility to create a knowledge base, inform the public and trigger actions, where appropriate.