Although the construction industry has made significant strides in recent years, in terms of improving its safety record, there is some way to go before it can claim success. It is considered that a major influence in achieving these future improvements will be the role of academia in:

• Delivering the core risk management education to its students such that they graduate, with the appropriate knowledge base
• Providing specialist learning opportunities, e.g. MSc courses, and also
• Providing co-ordinated industry-linked research to allow and encourage knowledge transfer.

At present there is no co-ordinated network between industry, the regulator (HSE) and academia. This is considered to be a significant shortcoming and a barrier to progress.

Whilst 'risk management' with specific applications is well understood by academia1², 'health and safety risk management' is a subject area that much of academia (in the Higher Education Sector) finds difficult to deal with [1].

The paper considers the issues associated with the establishment of a Centre of 'construction safety' excellence, including a professorial Chair of Construction Safety, at a UK University. In this context 'construction' is intended to be a holistic term (usefully illustrated through the '3Ps' approach of people, process and product as set out in the 15th Biennial report) applied to the whole process of adding to, maintaining and decommissioning the built environment.

SCOSS is concerned primarily with structural safety and hence the Centre would be expected to have a structural engineering bias in its approach. However this is inextricably linked with 'occupational safety' (reflecting also the interests and remit of one of our sponsors, i.e. HSE).

It is considered that what is often referred to as 'health and safety' is in fact part of the project risk management process and should be treated as such, hence the more appropriate term 'health and safety risk management'. This is the approach taken by the Joint Board of Moderators [2] amongst others.

Points that are supportive of such a centre of excellence include:

• The need as a profession to send out a message that our role as providers of infrastructure is underpinned by a need to make sure safety in design, construction and operation is integrated and just as important as any of the other technical issues with which we deal.
• The Royal Academy of Engineering and others have made valuable contributions to the debate over safety but that message needs to be expanded and consolidated into the education curriculum.
• The intellectual demands are formidable: How do we improve safety and how do we measure what we have and decide when enough is enough? How do we tackle the safety issues of an ageing infrastructure? Are we doing enough to reconcile construction safety risk with risk in other areas (e.g. rail)?
• Safety issues are disparate: they apply to fires, crowd control, construction, on-going maintenance, interaction between design and construction, contractual arrangements, terrorism, and so on. These interact with structural safety issues such as safety factors and building design and inspection. So there is a need to collate general principles and provide an education service for the future.
• We do have a strong foundation to build on. Lessons have been learned from other industries e.g. the off-shore industry, the rail industry, from accidents such as that involving the Herald of Free Enterprise, from structural failures, and from large construction projects like the Channel Tunnel, T5 and so on. The chemical industry and nuclear industries have evolved techniques for assessing the safety of plant using Safety Assessment Principles and deterministic and probabilistic techniques. There are administrative procedures such as HAZOPs, which explore failure paths, and skills such as the drafting of Safety Cases that could be more widespread. Yet as a community of engineers we have no recognised centre for the collation, recording, evolving or promotion of all this information. That is inconsistent if we really attach as much importance to public safety as we claim.

These raise a wide range of issues; in taking this proposal forward some rationalisation may be required in order to keep the brief within practical limits.

There are a number of centres of 'safety' excellence in existence, in addition to Universities offering 'safety' related courses; for example:

* Note 1: The Aberdeen programme is closely aligned with one of the ten priority themes identified by EPSRC in its call for outline proposals in January 1999, namely "Risk, Safety and Reliability". Students are drawn from a wide range of first degrees and industries. It was decided not to introduce distance learning.

The need for engineers to have a better understanding of safety and reliability issues stems from the increasing need to try to obtain a suitable balance between excessive safety and consequent waste of resources, on the one hand, and under-design with the possibility of high failure costs and undesired failure consequences on the other (Professor Michael Baker).

There are some elements of this course which will be of direct interest to the construction industry.

There are a number of individuals (e.g. Graham Dalzell) in the process/off-shore sectors that have direct experience of undergraduate inputs.

It is noticeable that there is no existing construction-related centre of safety excellence and hence this proposal would appear to complement rather than detract from existing provision.

The proposal therefore is for the establishment of a centre of excellence for construction safety studies with the inclusion of a chair of construction safety. The scope is suggested as:

• To further the collation and dissemination of information on construction industry safety issues
• To develop links with other university centres with an interest in safety issues such that overall benefit may be obtained
• To develop teaching aids and syllabi (for use throughout academia)³
• To develop post-graduate learning opportunities
• To further industry-related research
• To develop partnerships with industry and government agencies
• To review 'risk' terminology and approaches so as to bring clarity and consistency
• To act as a foil to the Regulators bringing balance to arguments submitted respectively by enforcers and practitioners recognising that in partnership the industry needs to set standards as to what constitutes the norm in acceptable safety standards.
• To act as a public figure head in the media on construction safety issues.

It is suggested that the Centre of Construction Safety be supported by a Steering Group (industrial panel) drawn from across industry (e.g. HSE, CIRIA, CIC, CC, CCG) as means of providing guidance and reinforcement of the academia/industry sectors.

These proposals reinforce and develop the arguments put forward by Allan Mann in his joint ICE/IStructE lecture⁴.

There are a number of ways in which such a proposal could be delivered.

Option 1a: this will be project related and hence might vary between £50,000 (for a medium sized project) to around £100,000 (staff costs and the like for the establishment of an MSc and teaching material). See also 'offset costs'.

Option 1b: this is suggested as a 5 year appointment of an individual. The cost is estimated to be in the order of £375,000 which includes for the salary and associated employers costs, and assumed disbursements (travel etc), but assumes that office accommodation costs and nominal secretarial assistance is provided by the University, at no charge. The Chair would be on a fixed term engagement. See also 'offset costs'.

Option 2: this is a major venture. However it may be possible for the researchers to be funded through existing educational funding routes, and for the accommodation to be provided by the University at no charge. If so, the cost would be as Option 1b, plus the cost of an assistant. This is estimated as £525,000 in all. (Note that Atkins recently announced a 5 year Chair at Greenwich for a reported cost of £750,000. This may include other items. The costs are very dependent upon the assumed 'free of charge' items however). See also 'offset costs'.

• any research project income
• the use of existing academic posts, which only require 'top-up' costs to be met in order to achieve 'Chair' status
• contribution or match funding by the University or others as has been the case in other similar examples
• sponsorship (this is examined below)
• industry levy.

Funding sources need to be identified and followed through. These would include:

• Public sector e.g. HSE
• Private sector e.g. Construction industry organisations and companies
• Education/Engineering funding bodies: e.g. EPSRC, RAE.

It is suggested that specific deliverables include:

• Development of a teaching syllabus and associated material on construction safety for undergraduate courses in Civil/Structural Engineering
• Development of specialised MSc courses
• CPD courses for academics involved in teaching of civil and structural engineering
• EPSRC Network co-ordinator⁶
• Establishing industry geared 'risk terminology' for improved communication and better understanding within industry and with the public.
• Identification of industry related research needs
• Implementation of specific research.

The scope and the deliverables will be constrained by the level of funding obtained.

¹ The title is important: this needs to convey the message that the Chair is interested in safety at all stages of the project process (see text also).

² Such as on technical issues or relating to project risk management.

³ This would be a major departure from the norm, whereby the incumbent, although based at one University, would be aiming to benefit academia at large.

⁴ Construction Safety: An agenda for the profession, 28 April 2005 at ICE.

⁵ taking account of syllabus development work at Liverpool John Moore's University (via HSE), Inter-Institutional Group H&S Panel and JBM requirements.

⁶ Drawing together disparate groups with a common interest in order to make a credible application for research funding and to raise the profile of this area with EPSRC.