Slide 1: Integrating health and safety risk education into undergraduate engineering courses Graham Schleyer University of Liverpool Nicola Stacey Health & Safety Laboratory European Safe Start Summit Bilbao 22nd March 2007
Slide 2: Risk Education – Why? • Accidents keep happening • Employers want graduates to be more risk aware • HSC revitalising H&S agreed action • Engineering Institutions Framework • HE recognises that courses have become too theoretical and not producing graduates who best meet the needs of modern industry
Slide 3: UoL and HSL Collaboration – Objectives • To develop a set of learning outcomes  awareness, understanding, experience, ability • To assess awareness of new students • To develop suitable risk education materials • To embed the materials into the u/g curriculum • To evaluate the approach • To disseminate the results
Slide 4: Examples of learning outcomes • Knowledge and understanding:  Engineers’ professional responsibilities  Methods of risk assessment  Underlying causes of accidents and failures • Ability in applying knowledge:  Designing simple engineering systems for safety  Performing risk assessments  Learning from documented failures
Slide 5: Risk awareness questionnaire • 50 multiple-choice questions covering 6 risk topic areas:  Concepts of hazard, safety and risk  Engineer’s professional responsibilities  Principles of hazard identification and RA  Techniques for reducing and controlling risk  Hazards and risk in the workplace  Underlying causes of accidents and failures
Slide 6: New year 1 materials • Accident case studies integrated into solid mechanics module  Challenger, Hyatt, Ramsgate and Piper Alpha  Two showcase documentary BBC videos  Risk concepts linked to stress analysis through case studies
Slide 7: New year 1 materials • Virtual re-construction of accident investigation  Role-play of real-life scenario  Learning from engineering failures  Team working and communication  4 stages • design considerations, risk management, materials inspection and stress analysis
Slide 8: Keynote lectures • Professional responsibilities • Human factors • Inherently safer design • Standards for Engineers
Slide 9: Future developments • Year 2/3/4 materials  Risk assessment in design  Final year projects with major safety theme  IIG e-learning tool • Evaluation • Dissemination  IMechE SRG Seminar 4th April 2007, London  CDIO Conference 11th - 14th June 2007, MIT
Slide 10: Risk education for engineers IMechE, London 4th April 2007 • Programme  HSE’s perspective on risk education  Designing for and managing safety – the Engineer’s role  The ‘Liverpool Engineer’ and risk  Bath University experience  Safety leadership: what it should mean to engineers  Industry perspective  An e-learning health and safety risk education package for undergraduate engineers
Slide 11: The Liverpool Engineer Project • To create the ultimate learning environment for the engineers of tomorrow • To develop programmes that strike an appropriate balance between theoretical, professional and personal learning • To graduate distinctive Liverpool Engineers who are ready to meet the needs of modern industry
Slide 12: Summary • Risk project linking well with curricular reform and Liverpool Engineer • Good indications from student feedback • Learning from real-life case studies • Active experiential teaching/learning through accident investigation re-construction • Industry role-models and experience through special lectures
Slide 13: Summary • More safety/risk in Final Year Projects • Collaboration essential between academia and industry • Main drawbacks are resources (time and money)
Slide 14: Acknowledgements • Health & Safety Executive • University of Liverpool • Health & Safety Laboratory • EnSure, BSI, IIG, TBS3 Thank-you More info at http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/hsl_pdf/2006/hsl0661.pdf