Safer Offshore Energy Systems Grants
The Safer Offshore Energy Systems (SOES) Grants are an activity of the Gulf Research Program’s (GRP) Gulf Offshore Energy Safety (GOES) Board, which seeks to identify opportunities to reduce the systemic risk for offshore energy activities. Through these grants, the GOES Board aims to decrease overall risk, reduce the likelihood of a catastrophic accident occurring, and should an incident occur, lessen the severity of consequences to people and the environment.
Not accepting applications
Cycle 5 (Awarded 2023)
Topic: Evolution of Safety Management Systems (SMS)
Total Awards: 5 Projects totaling $4.4 million
Grant Type: Research & Development
Grant Type Description: For projects that would inform and improve the application and adoption of SMS and safety culture for the reduction of risks in offshore energy exploration, production and transportation in the Gulf of Mexico.
Resources
View Grant Details - 2023
Cycle Material
Awarded Projects
- A Stakeholder-Driven Decision-Support Tool for Empowering Fatigue Risk Management: Towards Next-Gen Safety Management Systems
- Empowering and Enhancing Offshore Workers’ SWA, UWA, Reporting Unsafe Conditions, and Employee Participation
- Using Safety Culture Assessment Data to Enhance Safety and Environmental Management System Effectiveness
- Optimizing Risk-Based Decisions: Evolutionary Safety Management Systems
- Anticipating Challenges to Today’s Offshore Safety Management Framework Caused by Gulf Energy Transition Initiatives
Cycle 4 (Awarded 2019)
Topic: Advancing Safety Culture in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry
Total Awards: 8 projects totaling $7,255,570
Grant Type: Research & Development
Grant Type Description: Grants of up to 36 months to support research that will advance understanding and facilitate improvement of safety culture in the offshore oil and gas industry.
Resources
View Grant Details - 2019
Cycle Material
Awarded Projects
- Safety Reporting Action Program for Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in the Gulf of Mexico
- Measuring and Improving Blended Project-Safety Culture in Operations of Offshore Oil and Gas Facilities
- Bringing High-Reliability Safety Culture Decisions into Focus: Training with Interactive Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping
- Developing an Integrated Offshore Energy Industry Safety Culture Evaluation, Benchmarking, and Improvement Toolbox
- EMPOWER Safety Dashboards: Evaluate, Measure, and Promote Offshore Worker Engagement and Readiness
- Employee Well-Being and Mindfulness as Predictors of Process and Personal Safety
- Development of an Evidence-Based, Multilevel Safety Culture Assessment Battery for the Offshore Industry
- Aggregating Essential Exposure Data to Enable Meaningful Analysis of Safety Incident Rates Around the World
Cycle 2 (Awarded 2016)
Topic: Scenario Planning to Advance Safety Culture and Minimize Risk in Offshore Oil and Gas Operations
Total Awards: 4 projects totaling $1,202,831
Grant Type: Exploratory
Grant Type Description: For projects that jumpstart innovations and transformative ideas for novel approaches, technologies, or methods in their early phases.
Awarded Projects
- Collaborative Modeling with Fuzzy Cognitive Maps: A Novel Approach to Achieving Safety Culture
- Developing a Systems-Theoretic, Cross-Disciplinary, Scenario-Based Approach to Reducing Risk in Offshore Oil and Gas Operations
- Factoring in the Human in Offshore Operations: Forces for Scenario Planning
- Virtual Reality Offshore Operations Training Infrastructure: Enhancing Expert Containment, Decision Making, and Risk Communications
Cycle 1 (Awarded 2015)
Topic: Exploring Approaches for Effective Education and Training of Workers in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry and Health Professions
Total Awards: 6 projects totaling $814,742
Grant Type: Exploratory
Grant Type Description: For projects that jumpstart innovations and transformative ideas for novel approaches, technologies, or methods in their early phases.
Awarded Projects
- Identifying Critical Middle-Skilled Positions and Career Pathways in the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry
- Virtual Offshore Safety Awareness (Vosa) Site
- Immersion Simulation: Interdisciplinary Training for the Gulf of Mexico Workforce (ISIM)
- Using Problem-Based Learning to Develop a Future Labor Force of Environmentally Knowledgeable and Safety-Certified Workers
- Linking Energy Production Technologies to Human Health Protection: A "To and Through" Approach to the Interdisciplinary Training of a Middle-Skilled Workforce
- Preparing Underserved Communities for Career Paths in Energy, Environmental Health, and Restoration
Cycle 3 (Awarded 2017)
Topic: Preventing the Next Spill: Understanding Systemic Risk in the Offshore Oil and Gas Environment
Total Awards: 6 projects totaling $10,760,346
Grant Type: Research & Development
Grant Type Description: For projects that advance fundamental science or provide a basis for new technology development.
Resources
View Grant Details - 2017
Cycle Material
Awarded Projects
- Experiments on Multiphase Flow of Live Muds in a Full-Scale Wellbore with Distributed Sensing for Kick and Gas-in-riser Detection/Mitigation
- Unobtrusive Assessment of Macrocognition Processes in Team Decision Making
- Advanced Cement Characterization and Modeling to Evaluate Novel Additives to Improve Wellbore Integrity
- Hydrocarbon Influx Behavior within a Deepwater Marine Riser: Implications for Design and Operations
- Passive Acoustic Technique for Detecting, Locating, and Characterizing Hydrocarbon Leakages
- Mitigating Risks to Hydrocarbon Release Through Integrative Advanced Materials for Wellbore Plugging and Remediation