The institution has joined other leading public agencies, ministries and research-funding organisations as part of SAF€RA, a network which funds or manages European-based safety research programmes.
Kate Field, IOSH's head of information and intelligence, said: "Being a part of the SAF€RA network will help us to identify future challenges, national strategies and research priorities related to industrial safety internationally.
"It also provides an opportunity to strengthen IOSH's connections across industry and with different European funding bodies and research organisations. We hope to be able to build on our international reputation in research and encourage further collaboration around other important occupational safety and health issues."
SAF€RA launched its third joint call for transnational, collaborative research projects earlier this year and gave applicants until the end of April to submit pre-proposals.
Fourteen of the 16 pre-proposals submitted have been put forward for the second phase of the call and have until 27 June to develop their full proposals.
A decision on project funding is due in the autumn, with the research expected to start at the end of 2016 or early 2017 and run until 2019.
The call aims to foster collaboration between researchers from different countries in Europe and from different scientific disciplines, in order to improve safety and the management of technological risks.
The call topics are:
- Big data and intelligent prognostics for life extension of aging facilities
- Developing professional competencies and learning from experience
IOSH's funding would be for research projects based around the second topic.
The new link with SAF€RA is part of IOSH's strategic aims to increase the institution's international impact, expand and develop its membership and strengthen its role as an influential leader in safety and health.
Eric Marsden, programme manager at the Foundation for an Industrial Safety Culture (FonCSI) in France, runs the SAF€RA call secretariat.
He said IOSH was one of 13 research-funding organisations from eight European countries to have participated in the call.
Eric added: "I am happy that SAF€RA partners have decided to continue their collaboration on joint programming and research funding in a new phase of the project, even without the financial support for coordination which was made available by the European Commission through its ERA-NET programme.
"We are glad to welcome two new SAF€RA members, EPSC and IOSH, who will participate in research funding and increase our collaboration with industry partners."
For more details about SAF€RA visit www.safera.industrialsafety-tp.org.
