[SystemSafety] Another academic safety workshop

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

For some reason, I didn't get Martyn's original.

On 2015-01-14 11:38 , nfr wrote:
> There is that, but very often the problem is that academics who are organising conferences do not seek or invite them.
> 
>> On 14 Jan 2015, at 09:40, Martyn Thomas <martyn at thomas-associates.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> It's a pity, of course, but what's the incentive for an industrialist to
>> give up the required time (and sometimes travel costs) to PC duties?
>> .....
>> On 14/01/2015 09:05, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:
>>> Is it just me, or are others sceptical about a - yet another - workshop on safety which has only
>>> academics on the PC?

Some incentives I have heard from others:

* one gets to see what others think is new and think works, *including* stuff in rejected papers,
which is often just as interesting as the accepted material, but for different reasons
* one advertises for one's own company and expertise
* one helps to promote safety as an important and worthwhile engineering discipline, rather than
some box-checking exercise, or some barely relevant academic backwater

There is a standing argument that waxes and wanes amongst the SAFECOMP PC, for example, based on
Martyn's question. Last time it waxed was Newcastle 2008.

Whatever incentives there might be, people from industry in Germany *are* motivated to work on PCs
in functional safety. The German electrotechnical standards organisation DKE has its biennial
workshop on IEC 61508 and functional safety in Erfurt in two months. All our presenters are from
industry, with one exception (not me!). The PC consists of people from industry, all contributing
their time pro bono, plus two DKE people .... and me. TüV Rheinland organises perhaps the best
visited functional safety conference anywhere, with typically over two hundred participants - most
industry. PC is mostly industry. TüV SüD has one, called SAFETECH. Again, PC and participants mostly
industry. Both are annual.

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Faculty of Technology, University of Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
Je suis Charlie
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de