Industrial psychologists at the University of Aberdeen have been awarded £67,000 for a 12-month research project in offshore safety.
The contract has been funded by the UK Health and Safety Executive and five oil service and operating companies (BP, Coflexip-Stena, Conoco, Schlumberger and Texaco) and will be based on offshore oil installations in the UK sector of the North Sea.
The project is divided into two parts, the first will assess the link between leading and lagging safety performance indicators in an attempt to determine whether or not the same factors are being investigated in accident investigations and safety climate surveys.
The second part will entail the development of a human factor accident investigation tool, which will be used to collect accident and incident data by HSE inspectors, and the participating companies accident investigators. This tool will be evaluated by comparing the companies’ safety climate data with their accident data.
Project manager, Rachael Gordon said: “We have been studying the human and organisational factors found to cause accidents in the offshore oil industry over the past seven years, and this project will combine this knowledge in an attempt to improve the investigation of the human factors causes of accidents in the offshore oil industry.”
The results from the project will be written up as an HSE report.
For further details contact:
Rachael Gordon, Research Fellow, Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, on (01224) 273213 or by e-mail at r.p.gordon@abdn.ac.uk, telephone 01224 273 213
Bob Miles, HSE, Rose Court, London, telephone 0207 7176685.
University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-273778 or email a.ramsay@admin.abdn.ac.uk.