An innovative online tool has been launched to help Europe’s 20 million micro and small enterprises improve safety and health for their workers by assessing risks through an easy-to-use and cost-free Web application. 


Unveiled at the XIX World Congress on Safety and Health at Work in Istanbul last week, the Online interactive Risk Assessment (OiRA) project was developed by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) and is the first initiative at EU level to facilitate workplace risk assessment.

Director of EU-OSHA, Dr Jukka Takala, explained: “Experience shows that proper risk assessment is the key to healthy workplaces, yet carrying out risk assessments can be quite challenging, particularly for small enterprises, as they lack adequate resources or the know-how to do so effectively. In OiRA, [we are] proud to offer a free online tool to overcome these challenges. OiRA contributes to eliminating, or reducing the 168 000 work-related deaths, 7 million accidents and 20 million cases of work-related disease annually in the EU 27.”

OiRA is based on a step-by-step risk assessment process – starting with the identification and evaluation of workplace risks, through to decision-making on preventive action, identification of adequate measures, and continued monitoring and reporting.

Added Dr Takala: “EU-OSHA is working closely with the authorities and social partners at EU and national level to put the OiRA tool generator at their disposal. In turn, these partners will develop their own sector-specific and fully customisable OiRA tools and offer them for free to small enterprises.”

OiRA projects have been launched both at EU level and Member-State level (Cyprus, Belgium and France), piloting the development and diffusion model and covering sectors such as hairdressing and transport.

The new tool is based on the successful Dutch Risk Inventory & Evaluation instrument (www.rie.nl), which is downloaded an average of 5000 times a month. To find out more about OiRA, visit www.oiraproject.eu/about