Communicating threats to stakeholders is the top priority for risk managers this year, new research has revealed.

A survey undertaken by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) found the majority of the 1,400 respondents polled see this as their most important task for 2015.

Dr Christopher Donohue, managing director of research and educational programmes, commented: "The results of the survey really underpin what the industry knows - that good communication is critical to the risk management function.

"Effective risk management is not confined to understanding, modelling or testing risk - but in being able to communicate risk and its impact on the business, and being able to influence in that regard."

Estimating, interpreting and reporting value at risk (VaR) was highlighted as the second most important task for risk managers, while being able to communicate and report VaR deficiencies was also highlighted as a priority.

Other subjects that are high on respondents' agendas include regulatory compliance and calculating regulatory capital for market, credit and operational risk.

The survey also asked risk managers what they consider the most important knowledge areas for their profession to be. Basic risk types, value-at-risk, liquidity risk, stress scenarios and measures of interest rate sensitivity were all rated highly.

The GARP survey asked respondents to highlight what key changes they expect to occur in the profession over the next two to three years. Increased regulation, a greater focus on compliance, more emphasis on stress testing and less on VaR were all pointed out.

Risk managers also said they expect to see a greater emphasis on the quality of data they use, as well as information security.

Dr Donohue said the move away from VaR and toward stress testing and other measures is likely to be driven by regulators and Basel III expectations.