Jens Rasmussen

Jens Rasmussen (11 May 1926 – 5 February 2018) was a system safety, human factors and cognitive systems engineering researcher at the Risø National Laboratory in Risø, Denmark. He was highly influential within the field of safety science, human error and accident research. His contributions include the skills, rules, knowledge (SRK) framework, risk management framework, dynamic safety model, AcciMap Approach, and others.

Biography Rasmussen was born in Ribe, Denmark. In 1950, he earned an M.Sc. degree in electronic engineering, with a background in control engineering. After completing his degree, he worked for several years at the Radio Receiver Research Laboratory. The region is surrounded by three boundaries:

economic failure unacceptable work load functionality acceptable performance

Incentives push the system towards the boundary of acceptable performance: accidents happen when the boundary is exceeded.

Risk management framework Rasmussen proposed a multi-layer view of socio-technical systems, with hazardous processes and work at the lowest level, and government at the highest level. The different levels involve different research disciplines (e.g., mechanical, chemical, and electrical engineering at the lowest level, political science, law, economics, and sociology at the highest level, and other domains in-between) and different environmental stressors (e.g., changing political climate at the top level, fast pace of technological change at the lowest level)

Skills, rules, knowledge (SRK) framework See Skills, Rules, Knowledge (SRK) framework.

Abstraction hierarchy See the abstraction hierarchy.

Ecological interface design See Ecological interface design.

AcciMaps See AcciMap approach.

Selected publications

Books

Jens Rasmussen (2000). Proactive Risk Management in a Dynamic Society. Swedish Rescue Services Agency. ISBN 9172530847.

Papers