Over the past four years Discovering Safety has conducted scientific research in collaboration with the Health and Safety Executive. This research has developed helpful knowledge that we share via different methods to help organisations manage their health and safety challenges.
In September this year the industrial safetytech regulatory sandbox project concluded and proved an effective way to share expert knowledge from research in a collaborative and innovative environment using a Sandbox approach. This project brought regulators and industry together with technology companies to explore how new technologies might help improve health and safety performance. It benefitted all parties involved by providing a safety space to explore opportunities for improvements, identify barriers to adoption and suggest how they might be overcome.
The sandbox was a good open platform to conduct the type of thinking required for the future of safetytech. It encouraged honesty and that always benefits invention.
This was a good example of how the industry should work together to drive collaboration and innovation.
Participants told us:
In November 2023 Discovering Safety won funding from the Knowledge Asset Grant Fund (KAGF), run by the Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT) and funded by the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to further develop HSE’s Health and Safety Sandbox System into a replicable blueprint. This will enable consistent engagement with Government, Industry and the technology market. The new project will create digital regulation use cases to demonstrate acceleration of regulatory compliance, whilst supporting innovators bringing new ‘Regulatory Technology’ (Regtech) products to market.
Innovate UK is administering this competition on behalf of GOTT.
We will be working in partnership with Safetytech Accelerator Ltd, a technology accelerator focused on safety and risk in industrial sectors and critical infrastructure.
Great Britain’s health and safety performance has seen significant improvements over the last 30 years. However, Health and Safety Executive statistics show that over a million workers are injured or made ill by their work each year. This impacts individuals, families, employers, government and wider society. This new project seeks to generate and harness new thinking, methods and technological approaches to improve regulatory delivery and performance. This, in turn, will enable innovative new products and services to come to market for the benefit of all.
Regtech has the potential to improve the ability of workplaces to comply with health and safety regulations and improve health and safety outcomes but a host of barriers to adoption including regulation, are stifling this opportunity and the adoption of technologies in the workplace. This is, ultimately what we are looking to change. Addressing these barriers requires regulators, innovators and industry to work together to promote and stimulate emerging technology.
Discovering Safety lead and Head of Data Analytics at Health and Safety Executive
We’ll be sharing the project outcomes on LinkedIn and here, on our website.
For more information on this or any of the projects within the programme email discoveringsafety@hse.gov.uk
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