New Strains of Society: Hidden, Dynamic and Emergent Vulnerabilities

Technologies and infrastructures are increasingly intertwined; nations have become interconnected by transportation, communication and economy. New forms of crime, new system dependencies and new vulnerabilities produce new patterns of risk and vulnerability. The traditions of safety management and risk assessment are firmly rested on notions of control and responsibility. Risk must be identified and translated into controllable parameters, and someone must own the problem. What if the threats have no borders? What if no one owns them? Our attention has been directed towards hidden, dynamic and emergent vulnerabilities. Our objective has been to develop an analytical framework to understand, identify and handle such new societal strains. This involves acknowledging that current risk approaches and methods may fall short. New strains demands new thinking and new approaches towards risk and vulnerability. Attention is turned towards the bigger pictures of complex landscapes involving several systems that potentially generate, transfer and relocate risk. We refer to these bigger pictures as "threat landscapes - landscapes involving several systems in interplay. In effect, we take this to the extreme and confront ourselves with the potential of several scenarios overlapping, with various potentials of transfer and escalation. An important theme for the project is to stress-test how society can accommodate new strains and vulnerabilities. We also direct the stress-test towards ourselves by asking demanding questions: How are current risk assessment methods and approaches able to address the new strains of society? The project have developed a methodological basis for charting threat landscapes through interviews and workshops, as well as to put stress testing into a risk management perspective. The resilience perspective has become increasingly relevant for civil protection and societal safety and security in recent years. The project has therefore also developed a corresponding theoretical foundation for addressing "landscapes" of (interconnected) resilient actors, bodies and institutions. Threat landscapes for the thematic area "Oil in High North" have been developed, built around the Goliat field off Hammerfest. The thematic area "pandemic" is incorporated into this, based on an initial survey of players in such a scenario. The third and largest thematic area addressed is a comparative perspective between the United States and Norway relating to ICT vulnerability in critical infrastructures The project has investigated and described concrete digital vulnerabilities at component and system level in critical energy infrastructures with, inter alia, cyber-physical issues. Anchored in these, we have also elaborated threat landscapes that cross sectors of society and areas of responsibility, primarily related to oil services in the northern areas with power supply from land, and with unusual combinations of events (e.g., including pandemic situation). During the project a number of workshops and seminars were held. A tradition has been established with the Annual Workshop on Safety, Security and Resilience of Critical Energy Infrastructures in Oslo. These have also had a significant snowballing effect in the form of further seminars in Norway aimed at different authorities, research and education, industry forums and industry. Professional networks are formed and stimulated, and long-term cooperative relationships have been established with suppliers and infrastructure owners, and between authorities, academia /research and business. Through this, the project has contributed to both critical thinking and practical approaches to focusing on society's digital vulnerability and sustainability, mapping and describing threat landscapes where digital vulnerability is an overall theme, facilitating stress testing of such landscapes where society's resilience can also be explored and developed as "landscapes" of players with different assumptions and resources, sensitizing risk analysis' for changing circumstances and insights, including resilient properties, while potentially benefiting from "big data" in order to obtain more accurate insights into risk conditions. In addition, emphasis has been placed on facilitating stakeholders with different experiences and knowledge horizons to engage in the exploration of common threat and resilience landscapes. During the project period, there have been many incidents that confirm the relevance of New Strains perspective, actualizing our research. The results so far are among others documented through contributions to international book publications and conference papers. Webpages will be updated: http://www.sintef.no/new-strains

Society is put under tremendous strain by the potentials for new forms of crime, climate changes and increased system dependencies. These threats produce new patterns of risk and vulnerability. Traditionally, safety management and societal safety has bee n oriented towards distributing roles and responsibilities. The new strains of society involve risks to which clear-cut roles and responsibilities cannot necessarily be assigned. How are we able to acknowledge and deal with risks whose responsibility is d istributed over a wide variety of stakeholders? To fully acknowledge these changes implies accepting that current risk approaches may fall short. The new strains of society summon a strong need for new thinking, new methods and new approaches towards ri sk and vulnerability. The project will explore how existing methodological principles and approaches can be related to and be translated into complex threat scenarios involving several systems in interplay, pronounced uncertainty, possibilities for esca lation, as well as vulnerabilities that may serve to connect various systems, potentially acting to generate, transfer and relocate risk. The proposed project will provide (1) new scientific theory regarding risk acknowledgement and hidden, dynamic an d emergent vulnerabilities , (2) new research based approaches to explore and analyze new threat scenarios in complex system landscapes, (3) an arena for knowledge development, communication, and interdisciplinary experience interchange; designed for part icipation, involvement and collaboration of both researchers and user groups, (4) an arena for comparative analyzes by inviting and collaboration with international partners, (5) a systematic and targeted research agenda, aiming to develop a scientific r esearch environment for addressing, and build knowledge relating to the new strains of society.