ABSTRACT
Although fairly recent as a domain, with less than 50 years of existence, safety science embraces diverse topics and disciplines, giving rise to a variety of concepts, theories, and approaches. Therefore, stating that the following work is a safety science perspective on safety management or safety management systems would be an oversimplification. Even though the purpose is not to write a professional autobiography, some more detailed information about my background and experience will help the reader to understand the arguments that I make in this work.
Twenty-six years ago, I first trained as an engineer and then a risk manager. Feeling that the methods I had been taught were missing part of the picture, I rapidly turned to human factors, as they were called back then. I spent the first years of my career in an industrial research department working on the development of a human reliability analysis (HRA) method in the nuclear industry, together with colleagues from diverse backgrounds: engineering, ergonomics, and psychology. The challenges to understanding each other led me to undertake a degree in cognitive ergonomics, which put the “unique truth” and view I was familiar with from my engineering education into perspective.
