In July 2008 the Future of Humanity Institute hosted a number of leading experts on different global catastrophic risks.

The conference provided delegates with an overview of the key risks, and the state of current thinking on each of them. It brought scholars together from many different disciplines to discuss the common problems and methodologies which affect the study of global catastrophic risks.

Topics treated included nuclear terrorism, cosmic threats such as supernova, comets and asteroids, the long term fate of the universe, pandemics, nanotechnology, ecological disasters which drastically reduce biodiversity, climate change, biotechnology and biosecurity, the cognitive biases associated with making judgements in the context of global catastrophic risk, social collapse, and the role of the insurance industry in mitigating and quantifying risk.