SafeFuture Initiative  Safe innovation for competitive and sustainable Future

Industrial safety constitutes a transversal field of knowledge which provides an important added value in all European industry sectors, especially with the aim to develop sustainable technologies and products.
Safety and security have been artificially separated in many research and innovation programs – there will not be one without the other in the future: this integration requires the shift to a new paradigm with more integration of the concepts (methods) and the implementation (technologies).Sustainability refers to both safety and security of workers, consumers, the environment with a short and long term perspective and it includes the economic performance. Often the safe option is the most efficient economically if the investment in safety is considered in a long term perspective. This becomes more and more obvious in our risk adverse society.

Safety performance is an enabling factor for a sustainable future. The SafeFuture Initiative is designed to input the European Innovation Union Initiatives and partnerships as part of the implementation of the EU 2020 Strategy, in order to bring together the expertise related to industrial safety, security and sustainability.

SafeFuture is organized around 4 pillars that bring innovative and sustainable solutions to the European Grand Challenges (Health, demographic change and wellbeing; Food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime research, and the bio-economy; Secure, clean and efficient energy; Smart, green and integrated transport; Inclusive, innovative and secure societies; Climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials):

• Safe Infrastructure, to address e.g.: life extension of process plants, transport infrastructures, power plants, off-shore platforms…; intensification of natural catastrophes due to climate change; design and monitoring for long term operation for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS); monitoring, protection and security of critical infrastructures…
• Safe Energy, to address e.g.: safety of the use of new energy carriers for vehicles (FEV, fuel cells, CNG, biofuels…); safety for the green energy technologies (wind mills, photovoltaic panels, concentrating solar power (CSP)…); making the underground transport infrastructure compatible with the new energy carriers; combining pan European transport infrastructures and smart high power electricity grids…
• Safe Products and Production, to address e.g.: development of the European Factory of the Future, by managing emerging risks through new integrated solutions (safety systems, advanced personal protective equipments, new organizational models, ergonomics, etc.); enabling higher productivity under better workplaces; safety for the green jobs; safe production and use of nanomaterials…
• Transversal issues, to solve existing challenges for sustainable integration, interaction and risk governance such as: difficulties in putting together different risk mitigation policies and ensuring their compatibility (Risk-Risk trade-offs), Multi-risk and interdependencies of risks in a global competitive market…

ETPIS organizes a series of activities to promote industrial safety and risk management research & innovation, and dissemination of good practices in Horizon 2020:

• Technical working groups (thematic working groups / sector working group)
• Brokerage events
• Joint programming via the SAF€RA project (ERA-NET)
• Dissemination events (stakeholder meetings, webinar)
• Newsletters