PEROSH: a European research network on OSH

The presentation will illustrate how PEROSH, the Partnership for European Research on Occupational Health and Safety plays a key role in strengthening European OSH research and increasing EU-wide dissemination of results. The PEROSH network created in 2003 comprises 12 Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) institutes from 11 European countries, all playing key roles in their national affiliations to governments/authorities and health and accident insurance systems.

By networking capacities and activities of the leading institutions in the field of OSH, PEROSH gives a good opportunity to exploit synergies, prevent any duplication of effort, and overcome fragmentation of research. Joint collaboration within PEROSH on fields of common interest is one of the key aspects of the network. It enables to create synergies and to efficiently use resources and knowledge from different countries to improve the quality of OSH research.

Several examples of PEROSH networking activities will be presented in order to illustrate that European cooperation is very important for developing new risk prevention solutions and taking the state of knowledge forward:

- In order to adequately answer to the current and emerging challenges in the working environment, the PEROSH members joined their efforts and identified 7 new areas of focus for research and development in the joint paper “Sustainable workplaces of the future” (published in 2012). This publication which is very much in line with the theme of the XX World Congress “Sharing a vision for sustainable prevention” is an important outcome of networking activities. It has been used by the PEROSH members to seek funding at national level but it was also one of the key documents used to prepare the EU-OSHA report “Priorities for occupational safety and health research in Europe: 2013 – 2020.
- Another key activity of the PEROSH network is the joint collaboration on 8 research projects. These projects will be briefly presented with a focus on 2 projects.
Ø The Exposure measurements and risk assessment of manufactured materials-nanoparticles project which has received a grant from the European Standardization Committee to carry out pre-normative research and deliver norms documents. This project will allow an improvement of knowledge related to prevention measures and their effectiveness.
Ø The Safety culture and accidents: Promotion of zero accident vision projects which will illustrate very well one of the three main topics of the Congress “Prevention Culture-Prevention Strategies-Vision”.
- Knowledge sharing and disseminating results across institutions and countries represent another key activity of the PEROSH network. A seminar organized by PEROSH in Sept 2013 in Paris discussed how interactive tools, media, digital strategy, and online information can help us share OSH issues.
The PEROSH members will continue to proactively cooperate along these lines to further enhance European evidence-based research collaboration on OSH.