Conclusion to Part One: Historical and
Institutional Influences of Human Factors
Assessments?
This historical review of nuclear safety institutions and principles and of the
incorporation of human factors in the production of assessments is ripe with
lessons. In the span of fifty years, the role of the nuclear safety expert and the
conditions under which they carry out their work have changed considerably.
The physicist who was involved in the start-up and operation of new reactors
gradually morphed into the expert statutorily separate from licensees, whose
activity could be guided by a few key policy principles and governed by a set of
procedures. Let us review three points that seem especially important:
• The resonance of defense in depth ...