Search

Objective This article discusses the rise of European postgraduate courses in safety science and the content and quality of the Management of Safety Health and Environment (MoSHE) course of Delft University of Technology. Materials and methods Literature search, document analysis, interviews. Results The different MoSHE years show a varied picture of this post academic program. In the Netherlands the course is unique with a central focus on risk management and sustainability, supported by scientific developments in the areas of safety, health, environment, organizational science and psychology. In all year-groups the quality of the course was assessed with a short questionnaire, collecting opinions of course members on individual presentations and the course as a whole. Quality of the course was regularly discussed through the contacts of the course coordinator with module leaders, and at meetings of course committees, and leading to changes in content of modules. After MoSHE 1 (1989), 14 (2008), and 17 (2012) the courses’ structure, organization and content was changed radically. Only, the quality system of the course remained implicit. Using the model of the European Foundation for Quality Management a first set-up for a quality system is presented. Over the years the academic nature of the program has changed substantially. This is one of the challenges for the future to find a balance between the domains taught and between an academic approach and practical skills. The course could benefit from a greater input of process safety and safety in high-tech-high-hazard sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective What influence has research conducted by general management schools and safety research had upon the causes of accidents and disasters in relation to the managing of safety between 1970 and 1979? Method The study was confined to original articles and documents, written in English or Dutch from the period under consideration. For the Netherlands, the professional journal De Veiligheid (Safety) was consulted. Results and conclusions Dominant management approaches started with (1) classical management starting from the 19th century incorporating as a main component scientific management from the early 20th century. The interwar period saw the rise of (2) behavioural management which was based on behaviourism, this was followed by (3) quantitative management from the Second World War onwards. After the war it was (4) modern management that became important. A company was seen as an open system, interacting with an external environment with external stakeholders. These management schools of thought were not exclusive, but existed side by side in the period under consideration. Early in the 20th century, it was the U.S. ‘Safety First’ movement that marked the starting point of this knowledge development in the sphere of safety managing, with cost reduction and production efficiency as the key drivers. Psychological models and metaphors were used to explain accidents resulting from ‘unsafe acts’. Safety was managed by training and targeting reckless workers, all in line with scientific management. Supported by behavioural management, this approach remained dominant for many years until long after World War II. Influenced by quantitative management, potential and actual disasters occurring after the war led to two approaches; loss prevention (up-scaling in the process industry) and reliability engineering (inherently dangerous processes in the aerospace and nuclear sectors). The distinction between process safety and occupational safety became clear after the war when the two evolved as relatively independent domains. In occupational safety in the 1970s human error was thought to be symptomatic of mismanagement. The term ‘safety management’ was introduced to scientific safety literature alongside concepts such as loosely and tightly coupled processes, organizational culture, disaster incubation and the notion of mechanisms blinding organizations to portents of disaster scenarios. Loss prevention remained technically oriented. Until 1979 there was no clear link with safety management. Reliability engineering that was based on systems theory did have such a connection with the MORT technique that served as a management audit. The Netherlands mainly followed Anglo-Saxon developments. In the late 1970s, following international safety symposia in The Hague and Delft, independent research finally began in the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to present the results of a survey of post-graduate and MSc courses on occupational safety and health and it is restricted to three Portuguese university courses of EQF level 7.Design/methodology/approach – Course coordinators were interviewed, in half structured sessions, addressing four main topics: the course structure, certification, quality system and changes implemented, and finally research activities of the organizer group, and the possible dominance of a particular "safety science school".Findings – The analyzed courses are fed by research, educating students not only in easy to use tools, but also in underlying theories, models and metaphors of relevant disciplines, as can be expected from an academic training.Practical implications – Although the profile of the health and safety professional is defined and is the aim of several initiatives, the study of the health and safety education and its characteristics at the universities is still a scarce topic. By considering this case study of some Portuguese courses, these data will allow the definition of a benchmark of some courses' characteristics.Originality/value – As consensually accepted, there is a current need for developing a new professional qualification and training framework based on the existing occupational health and safety professional reality and that includes the need to understand the reality and the education approaches used by the already existing courses, as those reported in this case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The education of safety professionals shows a high variety in their level of approved qualifications, ranging from a technician level up to university master courses, and more recently, doctoral programs. In European countries, it seems that there are some differences in what regards the characteristics of the courses. These may be due to national particularities and legal issues, but also to the nature of the institutions and people ‘behind’ the courses. This paper presents the results of a survey carried out in the scope of an European research project and it aims to provide a basic understanding of the range and diversity of the OHS post-graduation courses. With an estimated average answer rate of 50%, the survey has only included courses with more than 120 teaching hours, from a post-graduation level, and with complete programs. Results are presented for 90 courses, from 18 countries, mainly (84.4%) from universities. It is possible to highlight the fact that, as expected, the majority of the courses (59%) are Masters (or equivalent), and are organised primarily by Engineering, Applied Sciences and Management schools/faculties, which together accounted for nearly 65% of the courses. In what regards the adopted quality systems reported by respondents, there is a predominance (65.8%) of the use of “internal” tools, such as the students and teachers evaluations and internal audits. One of the main conclusions is that there is a large variability amongst the analysed courses. However, it should be emphasised that these results are not representative of the situation all around Europe, as it was not possible to obtain information from all OHS courses. Considering the identified differences within all the European countries, the harmonisation of post-graduation courses on OHS, if it is to occur, has a long way to go. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There is a great need for health and safety advisers/managers to act as agents of change, both in respect to the technology of the company and the design of its workplaces, and in the organisation of the company health and safety management system. This article reports on the development of training to meet these increasing needs. The postgraduate masters course ‘Management of Safety, Health and Environment’ of the Delft University of Technology has now introduced a course-module of 1 week, addressing the issue of the learning organisation and the specific role of the safety adviser/manager. The course-module starts from the assumption that for a health and safety adviser/manager his or her personal effectiveness and ability to influence and stimulate others are qualities as important to a company as the quality of a safety and health management system. This paper will describe the development in the role of the safety adviser/manager and the mainstream thinking on change management and training. The consequence for the content and programme features of the course-module is presented as well as the results of the evaluation of its effectiveness. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Worker's health and occupational safety are critical to the development of nanotechnology applications, since some nanomaterials present a risk of adverse effect on human beings. This paper describes the application of the Systematic Design Analysis Approach based on the hazard process model (bow-tie) as well as design analysis of the production process, during a development project to produce a new type of ceramic tile with photocatalytic properties. Applying the bow-tie model together with the design analysis to the production process, it is possible to identify the emission and exposure scenarios and the related barriers based on the unit operations and the different technological options to perform them. Alternatives to the production process were considered, falling back on solutions to reduce emissions, and consequently the exposure to nanoparticles. The intervention model proposed will allow occupational safety and hygiene to be integrated into the development process that will involve a multidisciplinary team. Systematic Design Analysis Approach is a suitable method for occupational safety and hygiene risk management. This approach proved to be effective in generating relevant emission and exposure scenarios, as well as identifying possible barriers to control such emission scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious incidents in the 1970s and continuous growth of factories producing and/or using hazardous substances formed the basis of a quantitative approach to risk. While discussions of risk were conducted in all industrialised countries they were particularly important in The Netherlands due to space limitations and short distances between industrial plants and residential areas. This article is part of a series covering the history of the safety science discipline (Swuste et al., 2015; Van Gulijk et al., 2009; Swuste et al., 2010). The concept risk entered the Dutch safety domain before the 1970s in relatively isolated case studies and in managing flood defences in The Netherlands. Since the 1970s these case studies paved the way for the development of mathematical models for quantitative risk analysis that were based on experience from nuclear power plants, the process industries and reliability engineering from operations research. ‘External safety’ was a focal point for these early developments in the process industries: adverse effects of dangerous goods outside the factory’s property boundaries. The models were documented in standardised textbooks for risk analysis in The Netherlands, the so-called ‘coloured books’. These works contributed to the development of the Seveso Directive. For internal safety (taking place within property boundaries) semi-quantitative approaches were developed simultaneously. The models for quantitative risk analysis were deemed reliable, but the acceptability of a quantified risk was another matter. Making decisions on risk relates to complex societal issues, such as ethics, stakeholder perception of risks, stakeholder involvement, and politics, all of which made the decision making process far from straightforward. With the introduction of the abstract concept of risk in the Dutch safety science domain, the question of risk perception became important in Dutch safety research. The concept risk and methods for quantitative risk analysis first entered into Dutch law in environmental risk regulations. It took a while for risk to be accepted by occupational safety experts, but just before the turn of the century ‘occupational risk inventory and evaluations’ or RI&E methods were introduced into Dutch occupational safety legislation. This finalised the paradigm shift to risk-based safety-decision making in the Dutch safety science domain. While methods for quantifying risk are now widely applied and accepted, the proper use of risk perception and risk in the political decision process are still being debated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]