Validation of risk analysis methods: foundations, framework, and procedures

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Within safety science and risk research, there are recent calls to strengthen the foundations of the research field, focusing on the development of concepts, frameworks, and methods for identifying, analyzing, assessing, and managing risk and safety. Specifically, several leading scholars have identified a need for more focus on building empirical evidence for the validity of specific risk analysis and management approaches. This is important, because without validation of which methods and approaches work in what context, it is likely that organizational resources are wasted, and that risks are not effectively managed. In light of this, the proposal aims to advance the scientific understanding of validity in risk research, focusing on risk in engineering systems, and particularly on risk analysis methods. Four sub-objectives are formulated. First, insights are gained in how risk analysis validity has been understood in the scientific literature, which is important to avoid misunderstanding when addressing this concept in the proposed research. Second, an analysis is made of which methods are used in risk analysis applications in the scientific literature, and which are suggested in risk management standards. This is important to make sure that research in the fourth objective addresses the most used methods, and connects with trends in risk research. Third, a generic framework is developed to evaluate the validity of risk analysis methods. This is the core aspect of the research proposal, which connects fundamental principles and ideas in risk research (risk concepts, accident theories) with ideas from system engineering and validation research, accounting for the results of the first research objective. Finally, the generic framework is made concrete for a selected number of risk analysis methods, through making validation procedures for specific risk analysis methods. The proposed research combines theoretical work, focusing on advancing the fundamental basis of risk research for engineering systems, with practice-oriented work to develop procedures for validating risk analyses. This basic scientific work is necessary to serve as a basis for developing well-grounded risk analysis validation procedures. Future research with a more social science character will be needed to test these procedures with risk analysts and auditors, and to address social and organizational aspects of validation in a risk management context. In the long run, the proposed research program aims to improve organizational use of resources through empirical evidence of which risk analysis methods work better, for what type of systems, and in what kinds of organizational contexts. This can have positive economic implications for the organizations involved, give rise to new business opportunities for auditing companies, and generally to better risk management and safer engineering systems.