MSc programme (60ECTS)
Introduction
Lund University is pleased to offer a complete Masters of Science programme (60 ECTS) for professionals and practitioners in Human Factors and System Safety. The programme starts with a week of intensive lectures and orientation in Lund, the rest you can do on-line, in two years. The MSc is concluded with a thesis. With no prior Bachelor's degree, you can still take the entire MSc programme, and you will be rewarded a course Testimonium upon completion.
Application for our 2024 intake is now open and the instructions for how to apply are outlined at our application procedure-page.
This programme is for everybody who wants to expand their knowledge and practical skills for the safety challenges of the twenty-first century. Its program offers you the latest thinking in the new view of human factors, accountability, accident models, and resilience engineering. The understanding of accidents, risk and safety is changing. We no longer see human error as cause, but as a symptom. We recognise the exciting possibilities of systems thinking for accident analysis and organisational improvement. We are shifting from reliability to resilience and the enhancement of adaptive capacity. We look for new relationships between stakeholders to create forms of accountability that do not harm safety.
"Most of all thank you to Sidney for the fantastic course that has enabled me to do a job good enough for my airline to want to employ me permanently during a time of crisis and downsizing. I could not have done it without the understanding I developed during the course."
A programme tailored to your needs
You will start in January with an intensive residential session (learning lab) of four days at Lund University in Sweden. You meet colleagues from other industries, eager to learn and faced with similar questions. How do you write good recommendations? Can your company prevent drift into failure? How do you hold people accountable without invoking defense mechanisms? Do your operators have the courage to say ‘no’ when trading safety off against production pressures? What is the scientific heritage of the so called 'new view'?
After the first residential session, and in addition to two more mandatory Learning Laboratories during the first year and other colloquia that we organize with either Lund staff or visiting professors from all over the world, the MSc is taught on-line. You get access to online lectures, reading guidance and on-line entry to the entire Lund University library. Tutoring assistance is always available. Each course is driven by your work on take-home questions and feedback from tutors and other students on your answers, through a highly interactive virtual classroom (Canvas) and face to face seminars online (Zoom).
Almost all students take two years to complete the programme, given the constraints of their (working) lives. In that case, your first year is devoted to studying the literature in synch with your fellow students. Every two weeks, you will answer a new question about the literature, and you will give and receive feedback to and from your fellow students, as well as getting feedback from your tutor. During the first year you will complete the first three courses. The second year is devoted to the fourth course (on methods in Safety Science) preparing your for the thesis work to come and is then concluded with the MSc thesis. We do expect your thesis to be connected to your professional concerns.
"My own impression is that there is a lot of talk about safety (and a number of programs out there teaching this stuff) but I haven't encountered a program so comprehensive and effective. The Lund approach is unique and important, since most of us have such deep-seated opinions and values around human error and failure. This is not just about learning some new 'information'...it requires a shift in one's thinking."