Developing a Shared Understanding of Safety

The Lloyd’s Register Foundation project recognises that safety cannot be reduced to compliance, regulations, or technical procedures. While these remain essential, engineering graduates increasingly require the capability to navigate complex socio-technical environments where technical, psychological, organisational, environmental, ethical, and societal dimensions of safety intersect.

At its core, engineering accreditation exists to protect public health and safety. However, while this purpose is universally recognised, the meaning of “safety” itself is often assumed rather than explicitly articulated. Across engineering education, safety is frequently embedded within procedural requirements, laboratory protocols, and regulatory compliance, without a shared understanding of the broader professional capabilities required to create and sustain safe engineering systems. Before curriculum can intentionally develop safety competencies, there first needs to be a common understanding of what those competencies entail.

Rather than beginning with curriculum solutions, the project is therefore developing a shared conceptual framework for safety. Drawing together educators, accreditation bodies, industry leaders, regulators, and researchers, this work seeks to establish a common language that can inform accreditation, curriculum design, educator development, professional competency frameworks, and engineering education research. By strengthening the conceptual foundations of safety, the framework will support more coherent curriculum transformation while remaining aligned with the fundamental purpose of accreditation: protecting people, communities, and the environments in which engineers operate.

The framework will underpin future work on curriculum transformation, accreditation, engineering capability, maritime safety, mining safety, and broader societal and technological safety initiatives across Africa.