Dr Ian Belton
Lecturer
Management Science
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Publications
- Adapting scenario planning to create an expectation for surprises : going beyond probability and plausibility in risk assessment
- Derbyshire James, Dhami Mandeep, Belton Ian, Onkal Dilek, Aven Terje
- Risk Analysis Vol 45, pp. 3737-3757 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.70112
- Risk modelling for remote communities : an Inuit-driven Bayesian network approach to enhance search and rescue operations in Arctic Canada
- Belton Ian, Quigley John, Rudman Archie, Kikkert Peter, Howick Susan, Walls Lesley
- Proceedings of the 22nd ISCRAM Conference ISCRAM 2025 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.59297/bz4zhp86
- Designing a Bayesian urgency assessment tool for search and rescue in the Canadian Arctic
- Peters Joshua, Quigley John, Rudman Archie, Belton Ian, Howick Susan, Kikkert Peter, Walls Lesley
- Proceedings of the 22nd ISCRAM Conference ISCRAM 2025 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.59297/zgw11c50
- Effects of task structure and confirmation bias in alternative hypotheses evaluation
- Dhami Mandeep K, Belton Ian K, De Werd Peter, Hadzhieva Velichka, Wicke Lars
- Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications Vol 9 (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-024-00560-y
- The role of character-based personal mitigation in sentencing judgments
- Belton Ian K, Dhami Mandeep K
- Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Vol 21, pp. 208-239 (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12376
- The Nunavut-Nunavik Search and Rescue project (NSAR) : enhancing SAR operations in Arctic Canada
- Belton Ian, Quigley John
- Arctic Science Summit Week (2024)
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Professional Activities
- Bayesian Networks – From Problem Structuring to Probabilistic Decision Support
- Speaker
- 18/5/2025
- What do I Not Know? AI, Risk and Probation
- Participant
- 12/3/2025
- "Human Digital Twin for Enhancing Occupational Health and Safety"
- Organiser
- 24/6/2024
- StrathWide 2024: The University of Strathclyde Researcher conference
- Chair
- 23/4/2024
- StrathWide 2023: The University of Strathclyde Researcher conference
- Chair
- 28/4/2023
Projects
- Who knows best? Working with uncertainty
- Weaver, Beth (Principal Investigator) Belton, Ian (Co-investigator) Dong, Feng (Co-investigator) Gillon, Fern Rebecca Louise (Researcher) Heron, Gavin (Co-investigator) Lagnado, David (Co-investigator) Sanna, Greta (Researcher)
- Through interactive workshops, interdisciplinary collaboration, and structured practitioner engagement, we can influence how JSW’s interpret, trust, and act upon information when conducting risk assessments; strengthen AI literacy among practitioners; augment their critical thinking using causal modalities; support responsible and ethical use of AI. This addresses an urgent unmet need for improved professional critical thinking, AI literacy, practical/policy guidance in responsible use of AI, and critical awareness and trust in adoption of AI technologies.
Project partners are South Lanarkshire HSCP (SLHSCP), a Strathclyde Strategic partner, and Social Work Scotland (SWS), a National Professional body. While SLHSCP will directly participate in the workshops they will be key to local impact. SWS are instrumental to achieving national impact across social work and social care. - 15-Jan-2025 - 15-Jan-2026
- Strengthening search and rescue in Arctic Canada and Scotland with data collection, analysis and modelling tools
- Belton, Ian (Principal Investigator) Rudman, Archie John (Researcher) Quigley, John (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator) Howick, Susan (Co-investigator)
- The NNSAR project was focused on enhancing the Search and Rescue (SAR) system in the Canadian Arctic regions of Nunavut and Nunavik, where SAR responders – mostly volunteers – provide 24/7 response capabilities in challenging conditions with limited resources. Their services are essential for community safety and well-being. The NNSAR team has developed a novel quantitative risk model to support decision-making around the strategic allocation of resources for SAR operations.
To improve the management of SAR operations, and to maximise the impact of the NNSAR model, we have identified a need for more and better SAR data. At present, Emergency Management Organizations (EMOs) must allocate resources and seek government funding based on limited and/or anecdotal evidence only. This impact project plans to address the identified data gap in two ways.
First, we will work with Kativik Civil Security (KCS), the Nunavik EMO, to develop a rigorous process for the collection, analysis and reporting of SAR data. Those data will allow KCS to make evidence-based policy decisions to better support SAR in Nunavik and enable us to develop the NNSAR model into one with broad applicability across diverse SAR environments.
Second, we aim to extend the reach of our impact to Scotland. As in Nunavik, Scottish mountain rescue relies on a committed group of volunteers operating in a challenging environment. The two SAR systems share many features, notably growing caseloads that are increasing the strain on responders and the system as a whole. The data available in Scotland are much more detailed than in Nunavik but are currently underutilised. We will form a new partnership with Mountaineering Scotland to:
1. Apply the NNSAR model to existing Scottish mountain rescue data – this can both improve the model and provide useful insights for Scotland, which will translate back to Canada; and
2. Apply learning from the novel Nunavik SAR data collection process to enhance data collection within Scotland.
The outcomes of this project will include enhanced SAR in Nunavik and Scotland, stronger relationships with external partners, and the construction of a risk model with wide application to emergency management operations across the world. - 02-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2025
- Human Digital Twin for Improving Occupational Health and Safety: A Roadmap for Development, Integration, and Uptake
- El Raoui, Hanane (Principal Investigator) Belton, Ian (Co-investigator) Elawady, Mohamed (Co-investigator) Nguyen, Le Khanh Ngan (Co-investigator) Thompson, Nathan (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2023 - 31-Jan-2024
- Strengthening search and rescue in Arctic Canada and Scotland with data collection, analysis and modelling tools
- Belton, Ian (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2023 - 31-Jan-2028
- Bayesian ARgumentation via Delphi
- Belton, Ian (Co-investigator) Bolger, Fergus (Principal Investigator) Crawford, Megan Michelle (Co-investigator) Hamlin, Iain (Co-investigator) MacDonald, Alice (Co-investigator) Rowe, Gene (Principal Investigator) Sissons, Aileen (Co-investigator) Taylor Browne Lūka, Courtney (Co-investigator) Vasilichi, Alexandrina (Co-investigator) Wright, George (Principal Investigator)
- BARD was a 23-month project funded by the US Government Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and formed part of the larger Crowdsourcing Evidence, Argumentation, Thinking and Evaluation – “CREATE” – program. In BARD, we designed and produced Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) to assist in the construction of Causal Bayesian Networks (CBNs) as the underlying engines for the analysis of arguments and evidence. BARD thus allows analysts to build and test competing or complementary arguments, and to examine the impact of different pieces of evidence, in an intuitive environment. BARD makes use of the Delphi technique – an iterative survey method that minimizes negative effects of cognitive and social biases – to manage the interaction between users.
In addition to the Delphi Team based in Strathclyde, BARD also consisted of teams based in London (UCL and Birkbeck) – who are experts on the psychology of causal reasoning – and in Melbourne, Australia (Monash University) – who are expert in CBNs and software engineering.
IARPA - https://www.iarpa.gov/
CREATE - https://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/create - 01-Jan-2017 - 30-Jan-2018