Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)

Enterprise risk management (ERM) is a process by which an organization identifies, assesses, prioritizes and manages risks and opportunities to facilitate achievement of strategic objectives.

ERM in higher education has been recognized as an important process to manage risks and opportunities across the institution in an effective manner in order to meet mission objectives. At Rutgers ERM, we promote the development of an enterprise-wide risk-aware culture to empower each individual to act with full knowledge of the implications of his or her decisions and actions. The ERM process enables Rutgers to recognize strategic risk areas and mitigate current and potential vulnerabilities and threats.

Purpose and Objectives

ERM’s core purpose is to advance Rutgers’ aspiration to be preeminent by fostering a culture of strategic risk-taking and by creating robust programs that promote ethical, compliant and risk-aware decision-making.

Based on a foundation of accountability and transparency, the ERM program provides a proactive and comprehensive program for entity-wide risk identification, prioritization of key exposures, and development of operational responses to potential adverse events and outcomes. In addition, our approach enables management to conduct a balanced risk-reward analysis to evaluate potential opportunities to further the mission and goals of our institution.

The Objectives of ERM include:

• Proactively identify, assess, and manage the University’s critical risks
• Understand risk impacts
• Define the University’s appetite for risk-taking, and
• Embed optimized risk-taking into the University’s decision-making mindset