Courses for risk managers.

What language are the risk courses taught in?

One of these courses records its teaching language in the catalog. The catalog records a teaching language for one of them, and it is Swedish. None is recorded as taught in English.

The rest record no language at all, so the course page, and then the provider, is where to settle it. Among the courses that do say, Swedish is the most common teaching language.

The subject is one of the most bilingual in the catalog. The frameworks and standards have the same names everywhere, and Swedish providers switch between riskhantering and risk management in their own course titles without it saying anything about the teaching language. A course called Enterprise Risk Management can be taught in Swedish, and one called Finansiell Riskhantering can have English course reading.

Where the catalog records no language, the page shows nothing rather than a guess. The course page, and then the provider, is where to settle it.

What does a risk manager do?

Identifies what can go wrong in an organisation, assesses how likely and how serious it is, and makes sure someone actually does something about it. The work is as much method and follow up as it is expert knowledge of the risks themselves.

The role exists in very different settings, which is why the courses on this page look so different. A risk manager at an insurance company works with financial risk and insurability. One in the public sector works with continuity and services vital to society. One in the food industry works with product safety and protection against sabotage. The method is related, the content is not.

The catalog reflects that range. On this page are general risk management programmes, financial risk management, risk management with a cyber security focus, risk assessment in industry and healthcare, and risk analysis under data protection rules. The title on the course card is the quickest way to see which kind you are looking at.

Which risk courses are in the catalog right now?

Right now over 20 courses, from 9 providers. The list is that whole set and not a selection, sorted by how many certificates each course has issued.

One of them is called Diplomerad Risk Manager (certified risk manager). Several others lead to a diploma of their own under another name, and several are shorter courses or course modules that do not lead to a diploma at all. The page lists them together because they are about the same thing, but they are not interchangeable, and the course page is where to see what an individual course leads to.

Matches are read from the course title and not from the provider’s marketing text. That makes the list narrower and more reliable: everything here has risk, risk management, risk assessment or risk analysis in its name. A course about risk with a different name is not included.

Who runs the risk courses?

9 providers in the catalog run at least one. The largest are SSE - Handelshögskolan Executive Education (over 10 courses), Bergström & Hellqvist (3) and FEI - Företagsekonomiska Institutet (3).

The courses come from 9 providers, and each provider puts its own name on every certificate it issues. The full list is further down, with the number of courses and the number of certificates issued for each, and every name links to the provider’s own page.

The providers divide by the kind of risk they work with. Here are a business school with a broad portfolio of risk programmes, an industry body in theft protection and security, a couple of providers in food safety, a vocational college with an insurance focus and a couple that train in data protection. The provider’s name on the course card often says more about the content than the title does.

Are the risk courses taught at a distance or on site?

The catalog records a format for 1 of the courses here: 1 on site. Over 20 courses record no format.

This is one of the least filled in pages in the catalog on exactly that point, and that is worth knowing before you plan. Where the provider has not filled in the field, the page shows nothing rather than a guess, and the provider is then the only reliable source.

A couple of the courses state in their own title that they are held live online, which is the provider’s own way of saying it. The title is the customer’s and is never rewritten here, so that information stays exactly as it was given.

How long are the risk courses?

One course records how long it runs, and the length is then on the course card. The rest record no length at all.

The range goes from one day to programmes that stretch over several sessions. The entries with credits in the list are course modules from vocational college programmes, where five YH credits (yh-poäng) equal one week of full time study.

Where the length is not filled in, nothing shows on the course card, and the course page links on to the provider.

Are the risk courses vocational college programmes with CSN?

4 courses here belong to vocational college (yrkeshögskola), and the rest are shorter courses from commercial providers and industry bodies.

Yrkeshögskolan is Sweden’s state regulated higher vocational education. A YH programme is built together with employers, runs one to two years, includes a workplace placement (LIA) and gives the right to Swedish student finance from CSN.

Most of the risk courses sit outside that system. They are sold to people already in work and are most often paid for by the employer, because risk manager is rarely anyone’s first role. The catalog shows no prices, so what a course costs is a question for the provider.

What does a verified risk management certificate prove?

That the provider named on the certificate issued it to the person named on it, and that this can be checked without phoning anyone. Every certificate in the catalog is issued through TRUE, so an employer can follow the certificate back to the provider and see for themselves.

It does not measure how good the course was, and no verification technology can. What goes away is the other problem: a line on a CV that nobody checks. Together they have issued over 500 certificates. Over 10 courses have issued at least one, and the rest have not issued any yet.

In a job that is about assessing what can go wrong, it is no small thing that your own qualification can be checked. A risk manager hired on an unconfirmed certificate is in itself an example of the problem the job exists to handle.

How do I choose between the risk courses?

Start from the kind of risk you will work with, not from the word risk in the title. Financial risk, information security, food safety and work environment risk are four different fields of knowledge with the same method around them, and all four are on this page.

If it is a specific title you are after, such as certified risk manager, check on the course page what the course actually leads to. The catalog records no structured certificate type for the courses here, so the words diploma, certification and certificate appear as the provider has used them in its own title and not as a category we have set.

The number of certificates issued on each course card is the only comparable figure the page has. It tells you how many have completed the course and received a certificate through TRUE, not how good the course is, and a new course will naturally have a low figure.