Taken as a whole, these four papers on BRA suggest how evidential reasoning remains a process in which new techniques of inference must be socially grounded to be effective (Power, 1995). In common with other social histories of technological change, the success of BRA, and of its advocates such as Peecher et al., will depend on building alliances and on the successful marketing of effectiveness. A pedagogical change programme to create a new type of BRA expert will need to find ways to appeal to conservative interests with rhetorics of ‘business as usual’.
In addition, it is clear from the papers and wider discussion that the emergent category of BRA should not mislead us into thinking that it is a single thing, just as there are many variants of risk-based regulation. Peecher et al. outline a radical proposal which challenges existing practice, but other versions of BRA are more modest, seeking to improve the levels of business understanding by smaller practitioners. So ideas of BRA circulate in a highly differentiated professional milieu and the Peecher et al. approach is one among many.