SAF€RA launched its tenth joint call for transnational, collaborative research projects on Februay 4th, 2024. The call title is “Innovative solutions and technologies to improve safety of workers and emergency responders”, with three topics:

• Topic 1: Robotics and innovative technologies and approaches to increase safety and reduce the exposure of workers and emergency responders

Ensuring the safety of workers and emergency responders demands a combination of advanced technologies and predictive tools, and material science innovations. Technological progress, particularly in robotics, digitalization, and materials engineering, offers unprecedented opportunities to reduce exposure to hazards, improve operational effectiveness, and support decision-making during both industrial operations and emergencies.

On the technological side, robots and UAVs increasingly perform hazardous inspections and surveillance tasks, limiting human presence in dangerous areas. Virtual and augmented reality support realistic, risk‑free training and rehearsal of critical operations. As alternative fuels become more common, industrial workers and emergency services require updated procedures and response protocols tailored to hydrogen, batteries, ammonia, and biofuels. Complementary decontamination innovations, including enzymatic, sorbent‑based, and photocatalytic techniques, help mitigate chemical, biological, radiological, and particulate contamination. Meanwhile, digital twins integrate real-time data with predictive models to simulate incidents, anticipate failures, and optimize response strategies.

The proposed research projects should integrate advanced technologies with the objective of safeguarding Europe’s workforce and emergency responders in an evolving industrial and environmental landscape.

• Topic 2: Understanding materials to improve safety and reduce the exposure of workers and emergency responders

Improved material understanding is essential to ensure safety of workers and emergency responders. Industrial accidents (in particular fires) involving advanced materials or legacy contaminants release complex pollutants, necessitating better prediction tools and real-time monitoring capabilities. Substituting chemicals of concern with advanced or bio‑based materials helps reduce risks at source. Wearables enhance protection, situational awareness, and physical performance for responders. Finally, the growing deployment of electrochemical energy systems underscores the need for safer design, supported by numerical modelling to predict failure modes and guide the development of more reliable materials.

Research projects should focus on materials sciences and in particular on multi-physics and multiscale modelling, numerical simulation, and data-driven or hybrid approaches that enable new insights into the performance of advanced materials in critical industrial components. Proposed work may combine simulation, experimental validation, uncertainty quantification, or design methodologies. Ultimately, the goal is to foster innovative concepts and predictive tools that support the development of safer, more resilient, and sustainable technologies in diverse application fields that improve the occupational health and safety of European industrial workers and emergency responders, in the context of the energy transition and climate change adaptation.

• Topic 3: Improving risk assessment and risk management practices using big-data, AI, and numerical modelling

Risk assessment and risk management are undergoing a fundamental transformation driven by the availability of large-scale datasets, advances in artificial intelligence (AI), and significant progress in numerical and computational modelling. Traditional approaches, often based on limited datasets, expert judgment, and deterministic models, are increasingly being complemented or replaced by data rich, adaptive, and probabilistic methods. This evolution enables a more accurate, timely, and dynamic understanding of hazards, exposures, and vulnerabilities across multiple domains such as occupational safety, industrial processes, environmental risks, public health, and critical infrastructures.

The objective of the research call is to investigate the benefits of the use of big-data, AI, and numerical modelling to improve the relevance and accuracy of risk assessment and management or even to propose improved approaches using AI, big-datasets, digital twins or numerical modelling for risk assessment, auditing and risk-based decision making.