Integrated Management of Safety and Security Synergies in the Seveso Plants (SAF€RA 4STER)

The goal of the SAF€RA 4STER research project is to get insights into synergies and tensions related to the management of safety and security in the Seveso plants, and to create guidelines and a framework to manage safety and security in a coordinated and integrative way. Two-year research project will provide a better understanding of the awareness of European process industries about cyber-security threats and control measures, and how threats caused by intentional interferences can be better taken into account in the Seveso plants.

The research topic is very relevant in all EU countries because the Seveso III Directive (2012/18/EU) obliges operators to demonstrate that they have identified major-accident hazards and taken necessary measures to prevent such accidents. In safety reports, accident scenarios caused by technical or human failures are taken into consideration. However, scenarios caused by intentional acts are not considered, even if they have a wide potential to harm the workers and the population living nearby the Seveso sites. Furthermore, convergence of safety and security issues is a potential cause for major accidents, therefore this has become a matter of increasing concern in the Seveso plants.  

The project organisations are Technical Research Centre of Finland, VTT (Coordinator), University of Bologna, University of Roma Campus Biomedico and TNO (Organisation for applied scientific research), from the Netherlands. Project belongs to the European Industrial Safety platform projects, SAF€RA, which is a partnership between 19 research funding organizations from ten European countries. They collaborate on research programming and launch joint calls in the field of industrial safety. https://call.safera.eu/about/. Project is funded by the Finnish Chemicals Agency (TUKES), Finnish Work Environment Fund, and INAIL from Italy. The project has started in the beginning of 2019 and its duration is two years. 

In the research project, safety and security management is approached via literature review, case studies, survey and document analysis. Case studies based on documents and thematic interviews with safety and security experts in companies and regulatory bodies illuminate how and when safety management, culture and requirements are at odds with the security management, culture and requirements. Survey on attitudes and awareness of European industries as regards vulnerabilities and threat scenarios related to cyber security and work-related safety of employees, complements the study of safety and security management. In addition, security-related scenarios concerning intentional interferences are studied.

We hope you find the research project interesting and valuable and will follow the progress of the research via the website.

If you have any questions, please contact Marja Ylönen, Technical Research Centre of Finland, VTT

email: Marja.Ylonen@vtt.fi