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Reliability Engineering & System Safety

Recently, there has been a discussion in the safety science community concerning the validity of basic approaches to safety, referred to as Safety I, Safety II and Safety III, with Erik Hollnagel and Nancy Leveson in leading roles. The present paper seeks to obtain new knowledge concerning the issues raised, by adding a contemporary risk science perspective to the discussion. Risk is, to a limited degree, addressed in the literature presenting and studying these three approaches; however, as argued in the paper, the concept of risk and risk analysis and management principles and methods are highly relevant and useful for understanding the three safety approaches, deciding on their suitability, and eventually applying them. The paper underlines the importance of an integration of the safety and risk sciences, to further enhance concepts, approaches, principles, methods and models for understanding, assessing, communicating and managing system performance.

A risk science perspective on the discussion concerning Safety I, Safety II and Safety III