Risk and the Design, Development and Management of Technology

Programme directors: Prof.dr. A.R. Hale en Prof.dr. B.J.M. Ale

Motivation and mission
The aim of the programme is to develop models and approaches to help designers, policy makers and managers predict risks to safety, health and environment, choose integrated sets of measures to minimise them at all levels in the system, evaluate and improve those measures and learn from their successes and failures. Our ultimate aim is to develop and strengthen the scientific basis for decision making to minimise human suffering, material damage and environmental degradation caused through the design and use of technological systems.

The programme forms a bridge between real-world problems of risk, risk perception and risk control and the socio-technical models and research results needed to understand and solve them.

The innovative aspect of the programme is that it aims to combine technical, psychological, social and policy disciplines, using a systems framework to provide an integrated approach to risk management. Much risk research in the past has limited itself to either technical risk alone, or technical and human causes in combination. Other traditions have considered only the sociological, legal or organisational aspects in isolation. This programme aims to integrate all these approaches by modelling the influences both vertically across the system levels from societal regulation to on-line risk control, and horizontally across life-cycle phases from conceptual design to dismantling and disposal. The programme also emphasises learning across risk domains (transport modes, nuclear, chemical, etc.), an approach not found in traditional engineering-based risk research programmes.

Programme design and research approach ->