Projects and programmes
The Thomas Ashton Institute for Risk and Regulatory Research, working with colleagues from across The University of Manchester, the Health and Safety Executive and beyond, are delivering a wide range of projects.
Active projects
Every year, millions of workers worldwide are injured or killed in workplace accidents—often because lessons from past incidents aren’t shared effectively. Despite decades of safety improvements, similar accidents keep happening across different industries. Why? Because vital information often stays locked in silos, delayed by legal processes, or buried in technical reports.
The Enhancing Intersectoral Learning from Incidents (ELFi) project, led by the Thomas Ashton Institute in collaboration with The EEMUA (The Engineering Equipment & Materials Users Association) and other industry partners, aims to change that. The goal is simple but powerful: make sure lessons learned in one sector can help prevent accidents in another.
This project will:
- Review how industries currently share incident data.
- Identify barriers—like inconsistent reporting systems and cultural resistance.
- Develop a practical framework to improve cross-sector learning.
- Work with regulators and industry bodies to ensure real-world adoption.
By creating faster, clearer ways to share safety insights, ELFi could help stop history from repeating itself—saving lives, protecting assets, and reducing environmental harm.
When accidents happen in industries like construction, transport, or energy, important lessons are learned. But too often, those lessons stay within one organisation or sector. This project, led by the Thomas Ashton Institute, is about breaking down those barriers so everyone can learn and prevent similar incidents in the future.
Working with The Hazards Forum, and academic partners, the team will explore why sharing lessons is so difficult and find practical ways to make it easier. By bringing together regulators, businesses, and experts, the project aims to create clear guidelines for better communication and collaboration.
The goal? Fewer repeat accidents, safer workplaces, and stronger trust in how safety is managed across industries.
The work of this project feeds into the project Learning from Mistakes: A Safer Future for All Industries.
The Thomas Ashton Institute were invited by the Energy Institute to lead an important new study looking at heart health among workers in the offshore energy industry. The project focuses on Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS)—a group of serious heart conditions that include heart attacks and unstable angina.
Why does this matter? Offshore energy workers often operate in remote and challenging environments. If someone experiences a heart emergency, getting help quickly can be difficult. Yet, little is known about how common these conditions are among offshore workers or what specific risks they face.
This first phase of the project will:
- Review existing research on ACS in offshore and renewable energy sectors.
- Identify what data is available—from medical providers, coastguard reports, and industry sources.
- Recommend next steps for deeper research.
The goal is simple: to build a clearer picture of heart health risks in this growing sector and help shape better safety measures for workers. With thousands of people employed in offshore energy and the sector playing a key role in the UK’s future energy plans, this research could make a real difference in protecting lives.
This project explores the potential link between professional sports participation and the development of neurodegenerative diseases, specifically cognitive impairment, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease. Through two comprehensive scoping reviews, the research aims to quantify the risks and identify contributing exposures among professional athletes. The findings will support the UK’s Industrial Injuries Advisory Committee (IIAC) in making evidence-based recommendations to government. Led by an interdisciplinary team at the University of Manchester, the project addresses a growing public health concern and contributes to the broader understanding of occupational health risks in elite sports.
Led by Dr Richard Kirkham, the programme brings University of Manchester academics together with partners from the universities of Bath, Exeter, and Sussex, to catalyse, convene and conduct research and innovation in support of the UK's national security and resilience.
This ambitious five-year investment, funded by the UK Research and Innovation, is building a secure and resilient world strategic theme, will enable the SALIENT team to build strong connections across a broad group of stakeholders in central and local government, the devolved administrations and crucially, the public.
SALIENT will drive interdisciplinary research to tackle some of the UK's most challenging security problems. Their focus will be on robust and secure supply chains, global order in a time of change, technologies used for security and defence, behavioural and cultural resilience, and strengthening resilience in our natural and built environments.
SALIENT aims to:
- Enhance security across our virtual and physical environments;
- Strengthen the country's societal and economic resilience, by improving awareness around the key risks and threats we might be facing;
- Informing UK decision-making and preparedness.
In many hazardous industries such as oil and gas, nuclear, and transport, safety risks are overseen by regulatory agencies.
These government or independent bodies are responsible for setting and enforcing legal standards to keep safety risks within an acceptable level. Safety regulators actively monitor how industries operate, assess compliance, investigate incidents and ensure that appropriate corrective actions are taken when necessary.
When we think of such regulatory work in safety critical industries, we often imagine checklists, procedures, and technical knowledge. Yet, beneath regulatory decisions lies something distinctly psychological. Empirical evidence demonstrates that human cognition shapes how decisions and judgements are formed.
Our recent project set out to explore how those involved in safety regulation decision-making, such as inspectors and policy staff, can manage the psychological ‘blind spots’ that might influence their decisions.
The project gives regulators a stronger evidence base for inspector development and bridges scientific insight and practical decision-making. We are now continuing to work with regulators to explore how these strategies can be embedded into everyday practice to ensure ongoing opportunities to strengthen regulatory decision-making.
Read the full blog at the link below:
- Managing Psychological ‘Blind Spots - Alliance Manchester Business School
Project team
- Sharon Clarke, The University of Manchester.
- Sara Willis, The University of Manchester.
- David Holman, The University of Manchester.
This project aims to enhance occupational safety and health (OSH) in Malaysia’s construction sector by promoting the early integration of safety considerations into project design - known as Design for Occupational Safety and Health (DfOSH). Drawing on the UK’s decades of experience with similar regulations, the initiative brings together academia, industry, and government stakeholders in Malaysia to co-create practical solutions, build capacity, and exchange knowledge. The goal is to reduce workplace fatalities and injuries, support regulatory compliance, and foster long-term socio-economic benefits through safer construction practices.
Exploring the role of psychological diversity for safety-related outcomes.
The research team assessed the effectiveness of the ENSURE safety and security culture development programme delivered at the Henry Royce Institute.
The Japanese Government's Society 5.0 initiative is a forward-looking approach to integrate science, technology, and innovation for sustainable development, emphasising digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation. It aims to foster a resilient and sustainable society, blending cyberspace with physical spaces in a human-centric system. The World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, serves as a key milestone in realising Society 5.0, focusing on collaborative innovation to enhance connectivity and quality of life. The United Kingdom (UK)'s active participation underscores a mutual commitment to these innovative goals.
In the context of Society 5.0, the built environment holds critical importance. The integration of AI and automation is growing across multiple scales, from single projects to broader urban and infrastructure development. Both the UK and Japan are promoting the joint creation of sustainable built environments using these innovative technologies. However, effectively applying Society 5.0 principles in the built environment still requires further clarification and development. To this end, this project aims to strengthen the collaboration between the UK and Japan in the built environment, focusing particularly on the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) sector. It involves a systematic approach to identify the sector's needs and preferences to align with Society 5.0 principles, followed by creating and testing prototypes. These prototypes will be demonstrated and assessed at the Osaka Expo to develop a collaborative roadmap that guides the practical integration of Society 5.0 concepts into the built environment.
Through this project, we aim not only to advance scientific understanding of the interface between technology and human-centric systems but also to provide practical solutions, identify industry needs and establish a comprehensive strategy for implementation and dissemination.
The TAI is supporting the delivery of The Health and Occupation Research Network (THOR), which monitors the incidence of work-related ill-health in the UK and Ireland.
THOR is the only UK-wide surveillance system collecting medically diagnosed case reports of work-related ill-health, with more than 100,000 reports collected since 1989. Four surveillance schemes collect medically certified data on work-related ill-health from medical professionals to estimate the incidence of work-related ill-health and monitor trends over time.
THOR is run by the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) at The University of Manchester. The COEH engages in research and education concerning the relationship between the environment and human health, with special reference to occupational and other environmental factors. The work is partly funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
Find out more on the THOR website.