Many of the future subsea developments require adaption of new technology and new ways of operation. Safe operation is paramount, but more focus is placed on achieving high safety and availability level with more costefficient solutions. Topside design principles and philosophies are often modified for subsea use (to ensure well proven design), but future field development will require tailor-made solutions for subsea conditions. Reliability, availability, maintenance and safety (RAMS) are four important properties of systems that need to be specified and included in the evaluation of design alternatives. For the RAMS research area, the overall aim is to develop new knowledge, methods and tools to support decision-making about RAMS in design as well as in operation.