Foundations of System Safety Engineering (FSSE)

This course is an introduction to the principles of system safety, including risk, basic terminology and the main types of hazard and safety assessment techniques.

Designed for flexibility, this course can be taken on a stand-alone basis for continuing professional development (CPD) or can count towards the completion of a postgraduate award.

*Students enrolled on the MSc/PGDip/PGCert SCSE may have different FSSE teaching dates. For more information, please contact cs-safety-courses@york.ac.uk.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Identify safety risks and challenges from a wide range of sources associated with the entire lifecycle of complex systems and services.
• Communicate consistently and clearly about safety engineering and management issues in a manner appropriate for different industrial domains.
• Demonstrate how legal and ethical issues applicable to real-world safety engineering problems can be addressed.
• Describe how to design, execute and monitor an organisation’s safety management processes to achieve and maintain safety.
• Explain the scope and nature of systems engineering in the context of high safety risk industries.

Course delivery

This course is taught in a blended format, comprising face-to-face sessions on campus and online learning.

Face-to-face teaching will consist of three days of on campus teaching, taking place from Tuesday to Thursday of the teaching week at the University of York. The on-campus teaching will include lectures as well as extensive group exercises where you will have the opportunity to apply what you have learned through case studies.

You will also have 15 hours of self-study to complete in your own time. This includes preparatory work to finish before your on-campus sessions – which we’ll send on Friday 25 September 2026 – as well as materials to review afterward.

Assessment

Once you complete the taught element, you can opt to complete an assessment. The assessment for this course comprises coursework and an online exam.

The assessments are completed remotely and are expected to take 65 hours to complete, including revision and additional reading. The assessment is compulsory for students who require the module to be credited towards a degree award.

Progression to postgraduate awards

This module can count as credit towards the following postgraduate awards, subject to eligibility criteria. 

• Safety Critical Systems Engineering (MSc)
• Safety Critical Systems Engineering (PGDip)
• Safety Critical Systems Engineering (PGCert)

If you pursue further study, you may be eligible to credit a portion of your current course fees toward your future tuition. 

For full details, please see the terms and conditions.

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