The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will appoint a Board to provide oversight to the Gulf Research Program’s Offshore Energy Safety Program Unit.
The overarching goal of this Board is to contribute to ways to reduce the systemic risk for offshore energy activities. Understanding, managing, and reducing the risks associated with offshore energy systems requires collaboration and trust across industry, regulators, academic researchers, and broader stakeholder communities. This Board will convene these groups to enhance communication and coordination to share research objectives, identify best practices and impactful activities, and document and apply lessons learned from past incidents and near-misses.
This Board will engage in planning, program development and oversight of the Offshore Energy Safety Program. It will advise on the design, development, implementation and evaluation strategies and communication and knowledge sharing that enhances the safety of offshore systems. The Board will help build networks among the stakeholder communities for the GRP to catalyze effective research. The Board will guide the development of studies, projects and other activities that reduce overall risk, reduce the likelihood of a catastrophic accident from occurring, and should an incident occur, lessen the severity of consequences to people and the environment.
The GRP Offshore Energy Safety Board will meet twice yearly, and on an ad hoc basis, to advise on the studies, projects, and other activities under the purview of the Offshore Energy Safety Program.