Improve process safety in undergraduate education

• Main Author: Zsuzsanna Gyenes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIDIC Servizi S.r.l. 2019-09-01
• Series: Chemical Engineering Transactions
• Online Access: https://www.cetjournal.it/index.php/cet/article/view/10095

The IChemE Safety Centre (ISC) has undertaken some work to develop a list of desired learning outcomes for undergraduate chemical engineers. The project consisted of determining industries expectation of process safety education and presenting those expectations to a range of universities. That consultation led to a document stating the expectations as well as highlighting some information and resources to assist universities in reaching the goal. A benchmarking exercise was launched by the ISC to understand how well these learning outcomes fit into the existing curricula of contributing universities. The overall scope of the exercise is to review each element listed in the guidance document and see if they fulfil the criteria and objective of any undergraduate Chemical Engineering course. The participants assess the learning outcomes regardless of whether process safety is delivered as single subject or integrated in other courses. The learning outcomes includes four sections around Process Safety. Three of them cover classroom learning, meanwhile the last section characterises how Process Safety is applied in practice, for example laboratory activities, design projects and industrial training placements. This paper discusses the outcome of the benchmarking exercise; it presents whether the learning outcome can be applied and serve as a complete teaching package in Process Safety as a guidance. Universities are welcome to decide if the document supports the education and serves as a good reference or they need additional information/guidance to complete such course.