Trends and Opportunities of Tertiary Education in Safety Engineering Moving towards Safety 4.0

Vendula Laciok, Katerina Sikorova, Bruno Fabiano and Ales Bernatik
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Vendula Laciok: Faculty of Safety Engineering, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, 708 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic
Katerina Sikorova: Faculty of Safety Engineering, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, 708 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic
Bruno Fabiano: DICCA-Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department, Polytechnic School, Genoa University, 16145 Genoa, Italy
Ales Bernatik: Faculty of Safety Engineering, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, 708 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: Industry and related work and workplaces are constantly changing as a result of the implementation of new technologies, substances and work processes, changes in the composition of the workforce and the labor market, and new forms of employment and work organization. The implementation of new technologies represents certain ambivalence. Next to the positive impact on workers’ health, new risks and challenges can arise in the area of process and occupational safety and health of people at work. On these bases, it follows the need for predicting and handling the new risks, in order to ensure safe and healthy workplaces in the future. The aim of most forecasting studies is not only to identify new emerging risks, but also to foresee changes that could affect occupational safety and health. However, a number of questions still require proper investigation, i.e., “What impact do new emerging risks have on tertiary education in the area of Safety engineering? Has tertiary education already reacted to progress in science and research and does it have these innovations in its syllabus? How are tertiary graduates prepared for the real world of new technologies?” This paper represents a first attempt in the literature to provide answers to the raised questions, by a survey approach involving academics, Health Safety and Environment (HSE) industrial experts and university students in the Czech Republic. Even if statistical evaluation is limited to a single Country and to a small sample size, the obtained results allow suggesting practical recommendations that can contribute to ensuring new challenges in the area of education by addressing relevant culture issues needed to support new workplace realities according to the newly defined Safety 4.0.

Keywords: digital technologies and risk; occupational safety and health; process safety engineering; Safety 4.0; sustainable education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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