HSE seeks comments on draft research plans

HSE Press Release E194:02 - 11 October 2002

The Health and Safety Commission and Executive (HSE) today published its draft HSE Strategic Research Outlook 2003.

The document offers a guide to HSE's research activities and provides information on the broad spectrum of issues and topics, including new and emerging issues, on which HSE expects to carry out research, either now or in future years.

The draft has been made available now in order to give people the opportunity to comment on its contents and to provide constructive feedback. The final version of the document will be published in February 2003. The draft is available on the HSE website at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/

This will be the last annual edition of this document. Thereafter we will publish the document once very three years, starting in 2004, to coincide with publication of the HSE Strategic Plan.

HSE is reorganising its internal structures and mechanisms, including the way we identify research needs, and so we have decided to suspend the annual Competition of Ideas for 2003, to allow time to consider the most effective ways of ensuring that we remain open and receptive to new ideas.

Notes to editors

1. This document has replaced the Mainstream Research Market Document (published from 1996 to 2001). It sets out HSE's strategic science and innovation aims and its layout reflects that of the HSE Strategic Plan 2001-2004. It is intended that this format will make more transparent the link between HSE's research activity and its business aims and objectives.

2. In June 2000 HSC Chair Bill Callaghan and the Deputy Prime Minister launched the Revitalising Health and Safety initiative. This aims to achieve, by the year 2010, the following national targets: reduce the incidence of working days lost from work-related injury and ill-health by 30 per cent; reduce the incidence of people suffering from work-related ill-health by 20 per cent; and reduce the rate of fatal and major injury accidents by 10 per cent. HSC has identified eight priority areas - major hazards and poorly performing sectors of industry - where improvement is most needed to meet these health and safety targets. A good deal of HSE's research efforts are therefore targeted at the priority areas, which are: construction; agriculture; the health service; stress; muscoskeletal disorders; falls from heights; slips and trips; and work-related transport.

Press enquiries

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