The project addresses safety opportunities and challenges in petroleum exploration and production in the northern regions. Particular attention is given to next generation work processes and operational concepts.

Main research questions are:

• How may new operational modes improve safety performance?
• What actions are required to avoid increased risk in new work processes?
• What can be done to identify risk and implement safety measures in various development processes of new operational concepts.

The principal objective is to combine knowledge from high reliability industries such as the nuclear, transport and offshore industry to develop new and multi-disciplinary theories, methods, and management tools to reduce risk to personnel and environment in the northern regions.

This will be achieved by developing new

• knowledge, theories, and methods related to the interrelations between a complex technological system, its human operators, and the organization.
• approaches to risk monitoring, and especially focus on the use of risk indicators.

Project sub-objectives and activities are to:

1. Develop new knowledge concerning how humans and organizations contribute to the resilience of an existing technological system; including knowledge on how to train capacity for improvisation.
2. Develop new knowledge and methods that can improve the understanding of human and organizational decision making and handling of conflicting objectives related to safety.
3. Develop new knowledge on how changes related to technological development affect resilience; and in particular how different development processes call for different approaches to HSE management.
4. Develop new models and methods that can unveil early warnings of major accidents

The project will publish papers in international journals and participate in international conferences with a peer review system to build and maintain networks.
The project will have one doctoral fellowship.
The project will be carried out in close cooperation with ENI Norge using the development of the Goliat field as case studies.
The holistic approach of the project will complement the current risk management approach based on the development of scenarios for different defined situations of hazard and accidents (DFUs).