Perspectives on the ‘lens of risk’ interview series: interview with Nick Pidgeon

This article is the first in a series which will appear in 2012 in the special issue series Health Care Through the `Lens of Risk'. It provides a quasi-verbatim transcript of an interview with Nick Pidgeon, one of the main contributors to the social science component of The Royal Society Risk Report (1992). The interview contains a fascinating insider account of the debate about risk between engineers and social scientists who produced the report. It also offers some important reflections on the fissure which has opened up between risk sociology and research concerned with global and local system safety.