Reliability Engineering and System Safety is an international journal devoted to the development and application of methods for the enhancement of the safety and reliability of complex technological systems, like nuclear power plants, chemical plants, hazardous waste facilities, space systems, offshore and maritime systems, transportation systems, constructed infrastructure and manufacturing plants. The journal normally publishes only articles that involve the analysis of substantive problems related to the reliability of complex systems or present techniques and/or theoretical results that have a discernable relationship to the solution of such problems. An important aim is to achieve a balance between academic material and practical applications.

The following topics are within the scope of the journal: methods for reliability and probabilistic safety assessment; model and parameter uncertainties; aleatory and epistemic uncertainties, sensitivity analysis, data collection and analysis; engineering judgement and expert opinions; human reliability; test and maintenance policies; models for ageing and life extension; systems analysis of the impact of earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, winds, floods, etc.; codes, standards and safety criteria; operator decision support systems; software reliability; methods and applications of automatic fault detection and diagnosis; dynamic reliability; design and evaluation of man machine systems and human interfaces; design innovation for safety and reliability; safety culture; accident investigation and management. The journal does not normally publish articles that involve fuzzy sets and related non-probabilistic methods unless they contribute significantly to the solution of substantive problems related to the analysis of real systems.

The journal will contain contributed material in the form of original research papers, review articles, industrial case studies, safety recommendations, and short communications.