A Global Safety Evidence Centre research priority area.
It considers how to assess and manage these issues, and how individuals, organisations and communities understand, assess, measure and manage safety. The problem is that presently, safety terms can be poorly defined, while interventions and measures are inconsistent and are often not evaluated.
With this programme, we aim to bring together the relevant knowledge, tools and methods to help address this and improve safety outcomes, including working with our Heritage Centre to learn from the past.
Safety is a broad field used in many disciplines, professions and contexts. We want to look at what can be used across multiple disciplines. We use the following definitions:
The prevention of accidental death, serious injury (human), loss or damage (of/to physical assets or the environment).
Identifying and mitigating potential hazards to protect people, property, and the environment from harm, by applying scientific and mathematical principles to design, build, maintain (and decommission) safe structures, machines, systems and processes.
Understanding, preventing, and mitigating risks and hazards to ensure the safety and wellbeing of individuals, organisations, and communities. The consideration of how to assess and manage them, and how individuals, organisations and communities understand, assess, measure and manage safety.
Our aim to build an evidence base on safety science includes concepts, theories, principles and methods to understand, assess, communicate and manage safety. With this in mind, we are interested in projects including reviews on:
At Lloyd’s Register Foundation, we know that learning from the past is also an essential part of how we make the world a safer place. We are interested in safety science projects that focus on:
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Resources for improving safety are limited, and trade-offs are inevitable. The Global Safety Value Bank and these Topic Notes support decision makers to compare the value of interventions.
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This study examines funding patterns, collaborative practices, and emerging trends to help researchers, funders, and policymakers better understand the landscape and identify opportunities for advancing safer engineered systems worldwide.
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The Global Safety Evidence Centre partnered with researchers at Nottingham Trent University to conduct a case study synthesis of Safetytech Accelerator projects. This report shows how, by applying this approach, case studies can inform innovation strategies and decision making.
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This guide sets out the approach for conducting evidence reviews for the Global Safety Evidence Centre, including the standards and tools that ensure they are robust and credible, and the processes and people that make them relevant and practical.
Explore all the publications from the Centre and our partners related to the Safety Science programme.
The Safety Science projects from the Global Safety Evidence Centre
We are conducting a mixed-methods systematic review to collate existing evidence on what works in disaster risk management, by assessing the effectiveness of early warning systems, the barriers and enablers to their successful implementation, and the experiences and views of communities regarding their usefulness and acceptability.
The systematic review will use robust methods guided by the PRISMA and PRISMA-Equity guidelines to answer the following research questions:
Findings from this systematic review will inform the development of an evidence toolkit which will summarise existing global evidence on effectiveness of the different early warning systems that have been used to reduce loss of life, livelihood and asset during extreme weather and climate events. This review will also help inform the investments we at the Lloyds Register Foundation Global Safety Evidence Centre are making through the World Risk Poll into action grants. These grant-funded projects will in turn contribute to the evidence base on what works in disaster risk management.
The systematic review is being conducted in-house, within the Lloyd’s Register Foundation Global Safety Evidence Centre, and is led by Dr Elizabeth Adjoa Kumah, working with colleagues at the Centre and Margherita Musella, a consultant Evidence Reviewer.
Development of a life-cycle evaluation and prediction model for construction project safety level, using organisational, project and environmental leading indicators. Led by Seoul National University of Science and Technology, South Korea. This research, evaluation and trial project will develop and test a life-cycle-based predictive safety model for the construction sector in South Korea. By combining organisational factors, project characteristics and environmental conditions, the team will identify safety risks before accidents occur. The researchers will create an open-access digital dashboard and toolkit to help contractors, regulators and safety professionals proactively manage risk across construction projects.
Building the Evidence Base on the Impacts of Non-Traditional Risk Communication. Led by Lloyd’s Register Foundation Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk (IPUR), National University of Singapore. This evidence review and synthesis project will consider creative and participatory approaches to risk communication, which have the potential to engage and motivate people to keep themselves safe in ways that traditional risk communication techniques do not. However, they are often not rigorously evaluated, making it difficult for practitioners to learn from experience. This project will strengthen the evidence base on what works in non-traditional risk communication (NTRC) through a systematic literature review and development and testing of an evaluation framework in diverse contexts. The project will culminate in a Practitioners’ Toolkit and stakeholder engagement to mainstream evaluation in risk communication initiatives.
Strengthening urban resilience by equipping cities with a data-driven, community-centred methodology that aligns investment priorities with local needs. Resilient Cities Network and Arup are working with the cities of Lagos in Nigeria, and Salvador in Brazil, to integrate World Risk Poll data and insights into existing resilience frameworks to enhance risk assessment, improve decision-making, and target investments that respond to both lived experience and scientific evidence. Through inclusive stakeholder engagement, data validation, foresight analyses and co-development of an investment prioritisation methodology, the project will help cities institutionalise risk-aware governance and strengthen trust between communities and decision-makers. The approach will be scalable and replicable, enabling broader impact across global urban resilience networks and improving long-term city planning and resource allocation.
Improving access to forecasts for early response in South Africa. The South African Weather Service, UK Met Office and University of Bristol are working to support communities in the second lowest income quintile, who have been identified by the World Risk Poll as being significantly less likely to receive early warnings in the event of severe weather and potential disasters. This project will work across three areas of South Africa to understand barriers and improve information dissemination mechanisms. The lessons learned will be used to scale up improved early warnings across southern Africa.
Strengthening localised early warning systems in Ethiopia and Nepal to build resilience to landslides. The Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR), the National Society of Earthquake Technology Nepal, and Light for Generation Ethiopia are partnering up to identify vulnerabilities, integrate indigenous knowledge, and implement low-cost early warning technologies. By closing gaps in early warning, strengthening local leadership, and influencing national disaster risk reduction policies, this project empowers communities to anticipate, respond, and recover more effectively
Understanding behavioural insights for better waste management. The Global Environment Centre Foundation and UN Environment Programme are exploring the intricate relationship between social behaviour and waste management practices, aiming to identify key behavioural factors that influence waste disposal and recyclability. The results will inform targeted interventions designed to enhance public engagement and promote better waste management strategies, ultimately contributing to a cleaner and safer environment and improved community health.
The World Risk Poll tells us that almost one in six of the global workforce have experienced harm while working. Despite these high figures, it isn’t high on the list of things most people worry about.
With this other research priority area, we are seeking to contribute to the evidence base on promoting safe working environments.
