Editor Michael Beer, Ph.D., M.ASME, sat down with ASCE Publications to tell us about his new role and vision for the journal. Beer is a Professor and Head of the Institute for Risk and Reliability at the Leibniz Universität Hannover and a Professor at the University of Liverpool.

ASCE Publications: What inspired you to become a civil engineer?

Michael Beer: When I started university, I was not really sure what to study. I was interested in physics, chemistry and in particular mathematics. I thought I might go for mathematics, but I also wanted it to do something practical. That eventually evolved into the idea to use math in practice and do something which is beneficial to society. I wanted to create things that benefit people. This idea brought me to civil engineering. And interestingly, I found that many of the other students had a totally different concept, that civil engineering had little to do with math, which is not the case. There’s actually a lot to do with math. But for me, I found myself in the best possible place!

ASCE Publications: What drew you to become a journal editor?

Michael Beer: When I started doing research work and wanted to publish my first paper, I realized that it isn’t easy. I received unexpected feedback and had to adjust. Eventually I did learn the process and how academic publishing works, but this took time and involved a big learning curve.

After my own struggles, I wanted to help young researchers to understand the process, so they can publish their research in the best possible way, and reach the right audience, to create an impact. That was the main drive for me, to help the research community. Now that I understand how the publication structure works, I can help others get their work published.

ASCE Publications: How would you differentiate this journal from risk engineering publications?

Michael Beer: This risk and uncertainty journal is unique in that there are two parts co-published with ASME. Part A covers the civil engineering portion of engineering systems, while Part B addresses mechanical engineering. Across the two parts, we have a multidisciplinary approach. Our editorial board has intentionally fielded a range of experts. Some have a background in math, others in computer science or economics, some associate editors specialize in psychological and social sciences. The future of engineering research will be multidisciplinary.

Before this journal launched nine years ago, we realized there were limited publishing options for cross disciplinary papers, they didn’t fit in the scope of many journals. In addition, many people who work in the individual elements had limited communication between disciplines, and the result were papers published in silos that couldn’t address the big ‘multidisciplinary’ picture. ASCE and ASME realized the need to provide a platform for this kind of research because we believe that this kind of research is the future of engineering papers. I'm very grateful to Prof. Bilal Ayyub, the founding editor of the journal, for having set up the journal with this futuristic vision.

ASCE Publications: What critical topics do you want to see covered in the journal?

Michael Beer: There are two main topics that emerge from the current research in the area of risk and uncertainty. The first is interconnected, complex systems and the second is resilience. These may sound like different topics, but they are closely related because dealing with resilience requires a multidisciplinary approach as dealing with engineering systems or even systems from other fields.

For example, a transportation system, power grid, and the mechanical systems which support the grids, are all interconnected. Modeling and analyzing this interconnection are very important for risk analysis as well as for resilience analysis. This means that the concept of resilience needs to cover various disciplines and the interconnection of systems. To model the connection of systems in a global way, we need to think about the risk of cascading failures and related things, which is again related to resilience. So, there is kind of a ping pong between these two things.

ASCE Publications: What are the biggest challenges facing researchers working on risk and uncertainty in civil engineering today or in coming years?

Michael Beer: This is another multidisciplinary item that comes up more and more. I mean, when you see global experience, globalization, and the use of technology like the internet and so forth, today, you feel that everything is pretty much interconnected. However, to do risk assessment based on this interconnection is really a big challenge. The other challenge is our society demands rapid change, as well as rapid change to the conditions, and the environment. You never know what will come up tomorrow. I mean, this change occurs faster and faster every day. A hundred years ago, opening borders for international travel was a huge problem. Today opening a border can happen with a simple contract.

Crisis is also a huge problem. What we see now with Russia and Ukraine, I think no one really expected that to happen. The conditions for all the supply chains changed rapidly and created big problems. Nobody thought about the risks associated with change. Nobody really thought about the resilience component either. We needed to recover from these changes quickly to keep the economy running in the Western world. There is a huge challenge to make our systems, including supply chains and so forth, sustainable, and resilient. There will need to be technological developments to achieve that. Not only for the theoretical side, but also on the implementation side. That is something we really need to think about.

It's not only the crisis in Russia, but also COVID-19, these crises can come from any angle that we least expect. From a theoretical point of view regarding uncertainty quantification and risk assessment it’s difficult to deal with the unknown unknowns. That which we don’t know yet or are not expecting is something which I would also like to see in the journal in the future.

ASCE Publications: Describe the type of papers you are looking to publish. What key features do you look for in articles submitted to the Journal?

Michael Beer: For me, the number one key feature is innovation. We are really looking for new developments, new ideas on theory, on methodology, and technology development. And we want to publish developments that are useful in practice. We want to see theory and methodology and different applications and examples, so that the potential impact is understood.

But I think we should at least aim for it, even if we have a small example that shows this kind of deep theoretical idea has a potential that's already fine, but the filter we can go develop.

ASCE Publications: And what are your aspirations for the future of the Journal?

Michael Beer: We are very happy that the journal has a good impact and is growing rapidly. That said, this no time to sit and relax. This is a time to analyze. I want to understand where we are and how we can do even better yet. I do believe that is based on attracting attention, based on fundamental theories and novel methodology as published in the journal. My goal over the next five years would be to make our content more competitive and sustainable.

ASCE Publications: Do you have any advice you’d like to impart to new researchers starting out in this field of research?

Michael Beer: Look at the papers you really like. I mean, when you read papers, some are very difficult to read, and some papers are easy to read. You can classify these into two categories, those with simple concepts and therefore easy to read, and the others cover very innovative, complex topics which are presented in an easy way. New researchers should look for those papers, those that explain very innovative stuff in an easy way, and then try to provide their research in that kind of style. It really is a challenge to convey complicated things in a simple and constructive way.

ASCE Publications: Any final thoughts about the Journal or anything else?

Michael Beer: I'm very happy about the performance of the journal, and all the authors who contribute at an increasing rate. I would like to say thank you to the editorial team, to ASCE and to all the reviewers who help ensure the quality of this journal. My particular thanks go to Prof. Bilal Ayyub for starting this exciting journal, for his mentorship and for his friendship over so many years, in which we have been working together very closely and successfully.

Contribute to the ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering: Part A, Civil Engineering.