Resilient Socio-technical Infrastructures

This module was delivered as part of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) program at the University of Bristol. It addresses the fundamental concepts, vulnerabilities, and engineering principles required to design and maintain resilience in interconnected physical, social, and digital infrastructures.

Course Overview

Modern public infrastructure—ranging from smart grids to water distribution networks—is inherently socio-technical. This course explores how organizational policies, and cyber-physical dynamics interact under regular operations and adversarial threats.

Key Topics Covered

• Infrastructure Interdependencies: Cascading failures across telecommunications, power, and transport sectors.
• Resilience Engineering: Metrics and design methodologies to absorb, adapt to, and rapidly recover from disruptive events.
• Cyber-Physical Security: Risk assessment models tailored for industrial control systems (ICS) and operational technology (OT).
• Human-in-the-Loop: Human factors in security monitoring, incident response, and mitigation strategies.