Course content

Crises and major accidents occur frequently in today’s society, affecting both individual organizations and entire communities. Public reports show that the ability to prevent and manage such events (e.g., natural hazards, cyberattacks, industrial accidents, transportation accidents, war, acts of terrorism, supply chain disruptions, and "creeping" crises) is one of the greatest challenges we face—regardless of sector.Societal security requires systematic management, cross-sector collaboration, interdisciplinary approaches, and integration of safety work into all parts of an organization—both in the public and private sectors. Therefore, societal safety and security is relevant for all disciplines and all types of organizations.

Safety is created at the intersection of leadership, organization, technology, and loss prevention. This makes societal safety and security an exciting and important field for students from various technological backgrounds who want to work on complex challenges and contribute to making society more resilient.

The minor in societal safety and security aims to provide candidates from different engineering disciplines with the knowledge and competence needed to contribute to a safer society in future professional roles. Students will gain interdisciplinary knowledge and skills from the safety, risk, organizational, and technological fields. Upon completion of the minor, students will have knowledge about safety and management that meets the societal needs in different sectors. The minor will provide students with knowledge, skills, and competencies that enable them to contribute to safety in society and organizations, regardless of their technological background. Students will learn how to apply their technological expertise in combination with management and organizational perspectives to strengthen societal safety and security. Technology students who wish to write a master’s thesis on societal safety security topics will greatly benefit from completing the courses included in this minor.

Learning outcome

After completing the minor, students should be able to:

Knowledge:

• explain various approaches and mitigation measures for society’s ability to protect inhabitants' life and health and maintain critical societal functions and infrastructures.
• select appropriate methods and tools for systematic and effective preventive safety work in different types of organizations
• explain why disasters and accidents occur and how they can be prevented using different theoretical models and perspectives
• choose methods and tools to analyze societal security and safety and the expected effect of various measures and preventive safety work.
• explain principles and approaches for governance and regulation of safety at different levels in society
• classify and provide examples of different types of threats and hazards in society and organizations
• explain learning mechanisms following incidents.Explain opportunities and consequences that the introduction of new technology and new ways of working may have for safety.

Skills

• assess and manage risk
• assess how the interaction between organization, people, and technology affects safety
• analyse causes to events and how one can learn from these
• develop and apply methods for systematic safety work in organizations
• assess and analyze safety culture in organizations
• model the effect of possible measures that contribute to strengthening societal security.

Competence

• understand principles of Norwegian and international regulations and standards relevant for systematic safety work
• reflect on dilemmas when good measures may conflict with the rights of individuals and groups.

Learning methods and activities

The minor consists of three of the following courses:

• TIØ4201 Societal safety and security (K-course, autumn)
• TIØ4200 Safety management (K-course, autumn)
• TPK4120 Industrial safety and reliability (K-course, autumn)
• TIØ4205 Safety engineering (spring)

Students can choose between a management-oriented minor and a technology-oriented minor. For both tracks, the course TIØ4201 Society Security and Risk Management is mandatory. Students then select two out of the remaining three courses.

Recommended previous knowledge

Student at 5 year MSc program