This is a good oppportunity for the actuarial profession showing how networks (including the the profession's own "Quantitative Finance Network") can work. Please do spend a few minutes reading the proposal below. If you are a senior actuary and can encourage more junior ones to get involved - please do make the effort!
The lighthill risk network (LRN) is a not for profit organisation set up "to bring together scientific research and the insurance industry". Lloyds of London (for example) is a core member and sees the LRN's objective as critical to the ongoing health of the insurance industry.
One area where the network can add value for business is by finding good quality data sources (for example hurricane data, information on pandemics, crime indices etc etc). A vast amount of data is sourced (and cleaned) by scientists in their work; the LRN has recently met with the UK research councils who are keen to make their data available (often for free). There is much to be gained for the actuarial profession and the insurance industry becoming familiar with what is available. Here are some more details.
Just providing access to data is not enough - indeed it may be off putting as there is so much of it out there! What is needed is meta-data; data about data. This will be in the form of a brief commentary explaining what a given data field represents and how useful it might be (and the uses to which it can be put). Ideally this meta data would be produced by those wanting to use the data in practice…..
There are three phases: