Socio Technical Safety Assessment within Risk Regulation Regimes STARS

SAFERA STARS skal bidra til bedre forståelse av hva et sosio teknisk syn på sikkerhet innebærer ved gjennomføringen av reguleringer i ulike industrielle systemer. SAFERA STARS vil sammenligne sosiotekniske systemer i hhv. Finland (Kjemisk industri), Frank rike (Kjernekraft) og Norge (Petroleum). Den viktigste koblingen mellom prosjektene PETROMAX prosjektet; Robust Regulatory Regimes og SAFERA STARS er å sammenligne innholdet i de ulike reguleringsregimer som f. eks tilsynsstrategier, reguleringspolitikk og partsamarbeid.

The aim of this research project is to contribute both to better understanding of what the sociotechnical view on safety encompasses as well as to fostering the implementation of regulatory practices incorporating sociotechnical dimensions in their regula tory activities. These two research themses can be divided as follows: 1)what is the state of the art on the sociotechnical nature of safety? 2)what methods, practices and guidelines are currently in use in various regulatory bodies concerning assessment of high risk sociotechnical systems? 3)how well do these methods, practices and guidelines capture sociotechnical phenomena (such as drift, normalization, climate and social structure)? 4)what experiences regulators have concerning sociotechnical phenomen a that have safety relevance? 5)how could the existing methods, practices and guidelines be improved to better capture sociotechnical phenomena? 6)what is the role of regulation in the sociotechnical paradigm; what are the limits and possibilities of regu lation when safety is perceived in a wider sociotechnical view as a system property instead of a technical feature The project cooprate with the RRR project and advances the safety field by integrating lessons from the so called new view on safety and co ntemplating their practical implications. The relationships between activities in SAFERA STARS and PETROMAX project Robust Regulatory Regimes (RRR) are located in the intersection between sociotechnical perspectives of safety and risk regulations. The most important conceptual generic link between the projects is comparing relevant features of the different regulatory regimes when it comes to approaches of inspection, but many other perspectives are shared as well. Analyzing the gap between safety regu lation and risk analysis in other industrial sectors will be another benefit stemming from corresponding research activities between the two projects