Disputas - Master of Science Bjarte Rød

Title of the thesis:

"Operationalising Critical Infrastructure Resilience: From Assessment to Management"

Popular scientific abstract:

The society is dependent on vital functions and services, such as water and electricity – provided to us by so-called critical infrastructures. Large-scale events have shown that it could be difficult to protect these systems from all kinds of hazards and threats. Hence, to ensure the delivery of such functions and services, a new concept called ‘resilience’ has been introduced to enable critical infrastructures and their organisations to bounce back and cope with surprises. Although being debated and discussed for over a decade, there is missing answers to some fundamental questions, most importantly; how critical infrastructure resilience could be measured, analysed, evaluated and enhanced. To solve this challenge, this thesis presents an overall management framework –demonstrated, implemented and evaluated in a real-life environment – that facilitates the plurality of assessment techniques and methods, being compatible with existing risk management practices.

The thesis is published in Munin and is available at: https://munin.uit.no/handle/10037/18964

Supervisors:

• Professor Abbas Barabadi, Department of Technology and Safety, UiT (main supervisor)
• Professor Christer Pursiainen, Department of Technology and Safety, UiT
• Associate Professor Sigrunn H. Sørbye, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UiT

Evaluation committee:

• Professor Uday Kumar, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden (1st opponent)
• Associate Professor Bjørn Ivar Kruke, Department of Safety, Economics and Planning, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Stavanger, Norway (2nd opponent)
• Associate Professor Maria Sydnes, Department of Technology and Safety, UiT (internal member and leader of the committee)

Reserve member : Professor Yngve Birkelund, Head of Department, Department of Technology and Safety, UiT.

Professor Uday Kumar (1st opponent) will participate remotely to the defence.

Opposition ex auditorio:
If you have any questions for the candidate during the public defence, please send an e-mail to the leader of the public defence. They will announce the questions during the defence.

Leader of the public defense:

The leader of the public defense is Professor Arne O. Smalås, Dean, Faculty of Science and Technology, UiT.

Trial lecture:

The trial lecture is held Thrusday September 3rd at 10.15 in the same auditorium.

Title of the trial lecture: «Impact of new technology on system resilience»

Streaming:

The defense and trial lecture will be streamed via Mediasite:

https://mediasite.uit.no/Mediasite/Catalog/Full/ad07dd6d02a34d5a85012859c090b28f21

Audience:

UiT follows the national guidelines regarding infection control. A maximum of 20 people are allowed in the auditorium during the defence, as long as everybody keeps a distance of 1 meter at all times.