ESREL 2007 ‐ the 18th European Safety and Reliability Conference

This special issue is devoted to papers from the 18th European Safety and Reliability Conference, ESREL 2007, held in Stavanger Norway, 25–27 June, 2007. The papers are extended and improved versions of selected presentations at the conference. All the papers have been individually reviewed and revised for this special issue of the journal. ESREL is an annual conference series promoted by the European Safety and Reliability Association (ESRA). The conference dates back to 1989, but was not referred to as an ESREL conference before 1992. The Conference has become well established in the international community, attracting a good mix of academics and industry participants that present and discuss subjects of interest and applications across various industries. Approximately 350 papers were presented at ESREL 2007. The theme of the Conference was ‘Safety, Reliability and Societal Safety’. The Conference covered a number of topics within safety, risk and reliability, including risk and reliability analysis methods, maintenance optimisation, and risk management. Special focus was placed on societal safety issues, such as vulnerability analysis of critical infrastructures, risk perception, communication and governance. The application areas ranged from oil and gas, nuclear engineering and civil engineering to information technology and communication, security, transportation, health and medicine. It has been an aim of the sample of the papers included in this issue to reflect the large spectrum of works presented at the Conference. However, not all topics could be covered. The selection addresses various aspects of safety and risk, related to analysis, regulation and management.