The following strategy is the result of the Research Council of Norway’s strategic process for R&D work in the period 2007 – 2011. It has been prepared by a dedicated strategy group composed of external experts.
The strategy involves a change in mechanism of the research portfolio. From 2002 – 2006, the R&D emphasis was on capacity-building and a focus was placed on four major research topics. The new strategy involves the development of knowledge directed at a systemic level and complex problems across the traditional disciplines.
The aim of the R&D effort for 2007-2011 is to develop new knowledge and propose new solutions to the complex correlations between HES risk and ‘man, organisation and technology’ (MTO) in the petroleum industry. This includes the aim of increasing the understanding of cultural relations as a pre-condition for risk development and risk management in MTO interplay.
The Government White Paper highlights three principal focus areas for further work. It is therefore an objective of the R&D effort to facilitate projects that address the challenges within these three areas, which are as follows:
- Overall control of health, environment and safety
- Major accident risk
- Working environment and health
Rather than focusing on a handful of specific challenges, the new R&D effort will prioritise research based on the following criteria: project quality, topicality and an assessment of the benefit for industry and for the subject areas, over both the short and long-term.
The principal part of the strategy is intended to be non-normative in relation to HES challenges. It therefore only gives an overview of the most important challenges for the petroleum industry on the Norwegian continental shelf today. A more detailed discussion of some of the central issues is contained in individual attachments.
Specific to this R&D effort is the opportunity for individual projects to be fully financed by public funds. This will occur when the expertise required for certain research is, for various reasons, not compatible with traditional user financing, but the research concerns a thematically central or important topic.
ICRARD contact person in Norway:
Oyvind Tuntland, Director for professional competence
E-mail: oyvind.tuntland@ptil.no
Contact person in the Research Council of Norway:
Tor-Petter Johnsen, coordinator of the PETROMAKS program
E-mail: tpj@rcn.no