Discovering Safety and Safetytech Accelerator receive government funding

Technology is changing rapidly and must be embraced to keep the modern workplace a safer and healthier place for all. Industrial Safetytech (IS) is the term for innovative technologies, products and services that are redefining approaches to health and safety management. It can play a crucial role in promoting compliance with health and safety legislation, especially for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Discovering Safety, a programme run by the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and funded by Lloyd's Register Foundation, has been awarded Government funding that will generate practical, evidence-based assessments of IS against regulatory frameworks in construction. They will be working in partnership with Safetytech Accelerator Ltd, a non-profit established by Lloyd's Register and Lloyd's Register Foundation focused on safety and risk in industrial sectors and critical infrastructure.

This new project, ‘Enabling Innovation in Industrial SafetyTECH’, 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.

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.

IS 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 the project is looking to change. Addressing these barriers requires regulators, innovators and industry to work together to promote and stimulate emerging technology. This project employs a regulatory sandbox approach which brings regulators and industry together in a non-regulatory environment to explore how innovative proposals can progress to deployment. It benefits both regulator and industry, providing clarity to innovators on regulatory expectations and confidence for industry to invest in and adopt IS.

Discovering Safety will be sharing the project outcomes on their LinkedIn and website including a technology showcase event, sharing learnings and stimulating innovation. There will also be a report on UK opportunities in IS, outlining regulatory considerations and making recommendations for construction. Both the event and the report will support safe deployment of emerging technology, providing confidence to businesses large and small around adoption of IS.

This project has been made possible by a grant from the £12 million Regulators’ Pioneer Fund launched by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The fund enables UK regulators and local authorities to help create a regulatory environment that unleashes innovation and makes the UK the best place to start and grow a business.

For more information on this or any of the projects within the programme email discoveringsafety@hse.gov.uk