Overview
All around the world people rely on critical infrastructures to survive, stay safe and maintain a good quality of life. Much of this infrastructure, for example food and water supply, healthcare, education, housing, transportation and communications, is made up of complex systems that are highly interconnected and interdependent on one another. As the devastating COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, when one complex infrastructure system fails, many other complex systems are also affected, which can have catastrophic consequences for people’s lives.
In Spring 2019 Engineering X launched a £5 million programme, Safer Complex Systems, to enhance the safety of complex infrastructure systems globally. Safer Complex Systems is governed through a Board chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt DBE FREng, former Chair of the UK’s Health and Safety Executive and leader of the UK government’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety conducted after the tragic Grenfell Tower fire in London, UK.
Governance
Explore how governance must evolve in order to deal with complexity and promote safety.
Systems approaches
Explore how systems approaches can help to address and provide sustainable solutions to complex challenges.
A multi-year plan for Safer Complex Systems
Listen to a diverse expert community to develop an understanding of the landscape of safer complex systems, to identify what practical change is needed and who can help make it happen.
Build a diverse community and equip them with educational resources and mechanisms to support knowledge sharing and collaboration so they can advocate for and effect change.
Engineering profession recognised as thought leaders on safety in complex systems, and play a significant role in supporting other professions and helping to shape global agenda.
Our new strategy
In April 2019, Engineering X launched a £5 million programme, Safer Complex Systems, to enhance the safety of complex infrastructure systems globally. The strategy for the Safer Complex Systems programme will focus on four key areas over the next few years:
Govern
Supporting innovative collaborations and experimental mechanisms to test new ideas for complexity-appropriate policy and regulation.
Advocate
Supporting researchers to spot emerging safety challenges and supporting professional engineers to spot systemic risk and advocate within their organisations and beyond for measures that mitigate against it.
Educate
Develop written case studies and innovative educational tools to support engineering education and professional development
Convene
Build and convene an active, diverse community of complex systems experts and build mechanisms to facilitate knowledge sharing across sectors and disciplines globally and the application of academic knowledge into practice to enact change.
Our work
Resources
Take a look at the resources below developed as part of the Safer Complex System programme.
Case studies
Engineering X commissioned the development of 18 unique case studies by awardees from across academia and industry abou…
Systems approaches in practice
Explore how systems approaches can help to address and provide sustainable solutions to complex challenges.
Safer governance of complex systems
Explore how governance must evolve in order to deal with complexity and promote safety.