Det Norske Veritas looks back on a more than 140-year history of serving clients, industry and society at large through its objective of "safeguarding life, property and the environment".

Understanding the efforts that a company has put into achieving its present position may help us recognise that there is no room for complacency about maintaining and strengthening its role in the future.

In the early 1950s, DNV was still a relatively small marine classification society with about 200 employees around the world, primarily supporting Norwegian shipping interests. DNV's services and classification rules, upon which its business activities were based, were largely copied from those of major international competitors, and had been little updated since 1919. This was clearly an unsustainable position: DNV faced two options, subsequently expressed by its first head of Research - and later president - Egil Abrahamsen, as to expand or die.

The strategy underlying this expansion was spelled out in 1951 by the newly appointed president Georg Vedeler: "We have no choice; whether we like it or not, we have to do research".

From that new beginning, DNV grew from a small company serving primarily the Norwegian market to an international corporation with 6,000 staff, most of them with high technical qualifications, working across a wide range of disciplines and markets worldwide.

This book explains the half-century of research and innovation that has helped DNV achieve its role and standing today.

ISBN 8251503035