Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-05-30

Risky Decision-Making: Opening the Human Black Box to Document Decision-Making

Objective

How can we analyse real decision-making (DM) processes in organizations to prevent or mitigate industrial risks? The main purpose of the proposal is to acquire a better understanding of DM’s psycho-social mechanisms in organizations to improve them and so that, mitigate and/or prevent risks.
Managing risk is a priority for ensuring safety and continuous performance. Reason (Reason, 2000) shows how accidents happen when a series of ‘threats’ to safety occur and pass unnoticed through ‘gaps’ in an organization protective system. The actual sequence of actions and decisions in hazardous operations can help to understand, and therefore prevent or mitigate such propagation of failures. However, this needs to document it, and gathering such data is a gap in many organizations. Our research and operational question is therefore: “How can we gather and study real-world data on decision-making in risky situations?”
Following the flight recorders’ example, this research project proposes to develop a method to collect DM in hazardous situations, based on a human-centered “cognitive black box”. It will develop an in situ collect and analysis kit for experts’ DM and thinking process by combining a wearable first-person perspective video capture device, called subcam, and protocol for on-the-fly capture of workers’ mental processes. This technique will be used to investigate some real-world cases (in LSE ethics committees and EDF managers’ meetings). The main decision-makers will be equipped with the subcam, then debriefed.
The proposed research is a breakthrough in psychology and decision science. Our approach is radically innovative in terms of risks prevention and mitigation in that it not only provides a new path for scientific investigation, but opens the way to industrial applications in many industries, through an innovative and transdisciplinary approach in social sciences.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EU contribution
€ 221 606,40
Address
Houghton Street 1
WC2A 2AE London
United Kingdom

See on map

Region
London Inner London — West Westminster
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data
My booklet 0 0