Global Safety Evidence Centre awards £1.7 million to build evidence base on safe work and safety science

Within the Centre’s Safety Science evidence programme:

• Development of a life-cycle evaluation and prediction model for construction project safety level, using organisational, project and environmental leading indicators. 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. 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.

Within the Safe Work evidence programme:

• Safe work and safety interventions for seafarers. Institute of Applied Research, Ghana. This evidence review and synthesis project will examine interventions to promote occupational health and safety (OSH) of seafarers, identifying what works, for whom, why, and under what conditions. It will combine a mixed-methods systematic review with stakeholder interviews and analysis of maritime accident data in Ghana. It will support the development of a practice guide to enhance the implementation of actionable recommendations to promote safe work.
• Organisational capacity building safety culture in the garment sector. Nirapon and Columbia University, USA. This research, evaluation and trials project will test whether Nirapon's approach to building factory capacity through education and capability-building, strengthens occupational safety and health (OSH) culture and performance in Bangladesh's manufacturing sector. Using a randomised controlled trial with more than 300 manufacturers, mostly garment factories, the research will measure the effects of Nirapon's Safety Management Program on worker and workplace safety management systems, safety culture and awareness, and business performance.
• Building safer maritime futures in a changing climate. De La Salle University, Philippines. This data and analysis project is seeking to improve maritime safety and climate resilience in the Philippines by integrating shipping, fishing, accident and climate data to identify current and future risks, and provide practical tools for evidence-based decision-making.
• Safe work for essential workers during extreme weather events. Monash University, Australia. This evidence review and synthesis project considers the protection of the safety of  frontline workers during, and in the aftermath of, extreme weather events. This focus not only supports the safety of essential workers, but the safety of the wider community whom they serve.   The team at Monash University will find and map what is known globally about how extreme weather events impact the health, safety and function of essential workers and how to best prevent and manage these impacts.  
• Safe qualifications for migrant workers in high-risk sectors, including construction and maritime. Social Service of Industry - Paraná (SESI Paraná), Brazil. In this evidence review and synthesis project, the team will examine safety interventions within high hazard industries with an increasingly reliance on migrant workers; examining critical knowledge gaps in what works, for who and under which conditions. This project will synthesise scientific, regulatory and practical evidence alongside an analysis of the Brazilian context to identify evidence gaps and highlight opportunities to improve safety outcomes for migrant workers.

These projects were selected from a competitive funding opportunity on the basis of their robust, credible proposals to address important evidence gaps within the Centre’s Safe Work and Safety Science evidence programmes. Their contributions will help us understand and share which safety interventions work, to highlight and fill knowledge and data gaps, inform decision making, and enable safer outcomes.