Course content

The course deals with risk and vulnerability assessment, safety management and risk governance within different academic disciplines and positions in theories of science. The course encompasses theory on robust organisations seen from the perspectives of social sciences and safety issues on governance and regulations at different levels (global, international, national, regional and local). The course elaborates the contents and relationships between NAT, HRO and resilience engineering. The course emphasis the interaction between societal risk governance and safety management in industrial organisations. The course focuses specially on threats and hazards related to ICT and globalisation.
The course is given next time Fall 2016.

Learning outcome

The course’s position and function in the PhD study:
* Support the students’ need for knowledge for in their work with the PhD thesis.

Knowledge:
* The course shall give insight into the knowledge frontline of safety science and risk research.
* The course shall give knowledge and understanding of approaches to safety and risk studies within different academic disciplines.
* Different positions on theory of science from positivism to constructivism and their implications for safety research are elaborated and discussed.
* The course treats risk and vulnerability studies of critical infrastructure and of the threats and hazards enterprises are exposed to.
* The course gives knowledge on main theoretical approaches in safety research (NAT, HRO, RE, etc.).
* The course shall give insight in risk regulations and regulatory regimes and the implications for risk governance.

Skills:
* The course will give skills in expressing research questions and in delimiting the research problem to fit the scope of scientific articles.
* The course gives training in writing scientific articles within the field.

General competence:
* The course stimulates critical thinking about established truths, beliefs and “schools” in safety and risk research.
* The course contributes to awareness of the importance of power, politics and ethical dilemmas for risk governance and safety management at all levels from the blunt end to the sharp end.

Learning methods and activities

The syllabus consists of colloquiums between students and the course teacher, and writing a term-paper which requires use of the study literature on specific research questions. The term paper follows the norm for writing of articles or essays in scientific journals.

Recommended previous knowledge

Master degree or similiar in health, safety and environment (HSE) or courses in risk assessment.

Required previous knowledge

The course is based on TIØ4200 Safety Management, TIØ4201 Risk Governance or similar previous knowledge.

Course materials

Study literature:
Articles and text books presented at the start of the course. The literature will to some extent be tailored to the specific needs of the participants for knowledge useful for their work on the PhD thesis.

Credit reductions