Royal Academy of Engineering and Lloyd’s Register Foundation announce partnership to advance global engineering safety
03/12/2018
The Royal Academy of Engineering has announced a £15 million partnership with the Lloyd’s Register Foundation to address critical challenges in engineering safety around the world. The partnership will build on the Academy’s network of global alliances to tackle the most pressing engineering safety and sustainability problems and develop these into practical and accessible outputs for the engineering profession and affected communities.Over five years, the partnership will allocate £15 million in funding to create communities of best practice and build global research collaborations to develop practical solutions. The partnership will initially focus on three topics: safer complex industrial and engineered systems; enhanced safety in decommissioning and end of engineering life; and developing engineering skills where they are most needed. The partnership may result in new standards or codes of conduct, or even new approaches to engineering education, and will support programmes that have the greatest impact upon engineering practice globally.
Professor Dame Ann Dowling OM DBE FREng FRS, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “Our world increasingly relies on complex interconnected systems and our safety is at risk when localised issues result in wider, often unanticipated consequences. This global partnership seeks to make these complex systems safer. It will also help to build engineering capacity and skills to address these challenges, particularly in developing economies, and will result in improved and safer through-life design and disposal of engineering systems, from hazardous waste to ships and offshore structures.
“We hope to see engineering companies, universities, research centres and professional institutions, both in the UK and from around the world, joining us to identify where and how the most impactful interventions can be made.”
Professor Richard Clegg FREng, Chief Executive, Lloyd’s Register Foundation, said: “This partnership is an exciting new vehicle for high-impact engineering programmes that promote engineering knowledge, innovation and skills for the benefit of society. The first programmes recognise that there are new and emerging safety challenges, which we can make a distinctive contribution towards addressing. This will be achieved via a better understanding of complex engineered systems and the safer decommissioning of infrastructure, products and services. We also see that there are skills challenges that limit the capability of developing economies to select, licence and operate new critical infrastructure.
“For each programme, we believe that the Foundation’s and the Royal Academy of Engineering’s convening power to identify communities of practice and support collaborations will lead to interventions that are more impactful than we would be able to achieve on our own. We look forward to being joined by other partners who can work with us towards a safer and more sustainable world.”
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