Lecture 1.3 The Study of Risk: Safety Science

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Del curso dictado por Universiteit Leiden

Risk in Modern Society

36 calificaciones

Universiteit Leiden

Risk in Modern Society

36 calificaciones

Risk has become one of the defining features of modern society. Almost daily, we are preoccupied with assessing, discussing, or preventing a wide variety of risks. It is a cornerstone notion for businesses and organizations, but also for nation states and their many levels of government. And even for individuals, risk and the avoidance or embracing thereof, is a key theme. The course Risk in Modern Society sheds light on the broad concept of risk. In five distinctive weeks, this course closely examines various types of safety and security risks, and how these are perceived and dealt with in a wide array of professional and academic fields, ranging from criminology, counter-terrorism and cyber security, to philosophy, safety and medical science. Developed in collaboration with scholars from three universities (Leiden, Delft and Erasmus), this course will search for answers to questions such as: “what is risk?”, “how do we study and deal with risk?”, “does ‘perceived risk’ correspond to 'real' risk?”, and “how should we deal with societal perceptions of risk, safety and security?

De la lección

Welcome & Risk in Modern Society

In this module, you can find all the information you need in order to be able to successfully complete the course. After you have familiarised yourself with the course, we will move to the content of the first module. In the first week, we will discuss how the concept of risk has played an increasingly important role in shaping our modern society. Tracing the historical origins of this concept, we will look at how our modern conception of risk has emerged, and how it is currently being studied within the academic world.

Lecture 1.1 The History of Risk4:14

Lecture 1.2 The Study of Risk: Security Studies6:34

Lecture 1.3 The Study of Risk: Safety Science7:21

Conoce a los instructores

Marieke Liem
Dr.
Institute Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University
Bibi van den Berg
Prof. dr.
Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University
Edwin Bakker
Prof. dr.
Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University
Jim van Steenbergen
Dr.
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) & Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC)
Sabine Roeser
Prof. dr.
Ethics/ Philosophy of technology section, TU Delft
Margreet Vos
Prof. dr.
Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Erasmus MC
Genserik Reniers
Prof. dr. ir.
Safety and Security Science Section, TU Delft
Pieter van Gelder
Prof. dr. ir.
Safety and Security Science section, TU Delft

Hi there. In a previous video,

we saw that the notion of risk is studied in

two rather different academic domains: Security Studies,

and what is loosely called Safety Science.

We saw that Security Studies is a subfield within the Social Sciences.

By contrast, Safety Science can be found in the field of Engineering.

So, what is Safety Science and what does it do?

Safety Science has been defined as a field of study that

looks into the science and technology of human safety.

It arose as a field of study in

the previous century predominantly in response to technological developments.

New technologies oftentimes contribute to solving societal or economic challenges,

but they may also lead to new risks for human beings or the environment.

Safety Science seeks to understand these risks and provide guidance in mitigating them.

It studies safety in a number of areas where harm to humans can arise.

One area of study, for instance,

is harm that results from natural hazards.

For example, from floods,

or earthquakes, or extreme weather events such as hurricanes.

In this subfield of Safety Science,

researchers seek to develop models that can help us predict

the likelihood and impact of natural hazards in specific locations.

Using these models, they can assess whether the level of protection in these locations

is adequate or should be improved to increase the safety of people living there.

A second subdomain of Safety Science is airplane and vehicle safety.

Here, the goal is to understand how to decrease

various safety risks related to different forms of transportation.

This subdomain of Safety Science has played

a major role in improving the safety of modern day cars and airplanes,

for example, leading to a significant reduction of accidents.

A third subdomain of Safety Science is the field of chemical,

industrial, and nuclear safety.

Over the past centuries,

we've created an increasing number of very complex technological systems,

for instance, for energy provision.

These systems have made our lives easier and they also play

a central role in facilitating economic activity in our societies.

They've become elements of the so-called critical infrastructure for our way of life.

While complex technological systems such as

nuclear power plants and the chemical industry have brought us many benefits,

at the same time, these systems are also hazardous.

They are risky technologies in the sense that when accidents occur,

they may lead to significant harm to large groups of people and to the environment.

A chemical spill or a nuclear accident can have far reaching and

grave effects on the health and well-being of animals plants and humans.

Therefore, studying safety in relation to chemical,

industrial, and nuclear systems is literally of vital importance.

A fourth and final subdomain of Safety Science is the area of Public Health.

In this field, scientists study the potential and

consequences of various health risks for communities and the public at large.

Examples include ensuring that the food we eat is safe,

preparing for epidemics or viral outbreaks,

and investigating the effects of lifestyle choices in

relation to certain diseases, for example, diabetes.

One thing to note about Safety Science is that it

focuses on quite different things than Security Studies.

In a previous video,

we saw that Security Studies seeks to understand the causes of security threats.

For example, it aims to uncover why individuals radicalize and become terrorists,

or it seeks to understand why nation states go to war.

In both cases, human beings make an intentional choice to harm others.

In contrast, as the name already suggests,

Safety Science focuses on safety,

that is, on how to keep humans safe from harm.

Safety Science seeks to understand and improve

the ways in which we can protect human beings from harm.

So, the focus is not so much on the cause of harm but rather on the target of harm,

on the receiving end,

on who or what comes to harm.

In the previous video,

we saw that Security Studies aims to understand why risks emerge.

In contrast, Safety Science aims to understand what we can do against risks.

Second, safety scientists mostly focus on harms that are non-intentional or accidental.

They study the risks that result from

natural hazards such as volcano eruptions and floods,

or they study risk of accidents in chemical plants,

or they seek to understand the risk of

earthquakes for the design of nuclear power plants.

In recent years, safety scientists have increasingly started

focusing on intentional threats in relation to industrial safety,

or the safety of flood systems,

for example, in relation to terrorism.

However, the vast majority of the work in Safety Science is

targeted at non-intentional accidental hazards.

So, what have we learned?

First, the risk is not only studied in the field of

Security Studies but also in Safety Science.

We saw that this field emerged in the 20th century predominantly in response to

the development of modern technologies and

the safety hazards these generate for human beings.

We saw that Safety Science has a number of different subdomains.

For example, studying industrial,

chemical, and nuclear safety,

vehicle and airplane safety,

public health, and natural hazards.

Finally, we saw that it differs from

Security Studies because it studies what we can do against

risks and how we can protect ourselves better against them rather than why they emerge.

And we saw that it differs from Security Studies because it studies

non-intentional and accidental harm rather than intentional harm caused by humans.

With this video, we've come to the end of week one.

In the next week, we will look at risk as it is

understood in Safety Science in more detail.

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