The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is a UK public body responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare, and for research into occupational risks in Great Britain. It is a non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom with its headquarters in Bootle, England. In Northern Ireland, these duties lie with the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland. The HSE was created by the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and has since absorbed earlier regulatory bodies such as the Factory Inspectorate and the Railway Inspectorate though the Railway Inspectorate was transferred to the Office of Rail and Road in April 2006. The HSE is sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions. As part of its work, HSE investigates industrial accidents, small and large, including major incidents such as the explosion and fire at Buncefield in 2005. Though it formerly reported to the Health and Safety Commission, on 1 April 2008, the two bodies merged.
Julia Elizabeth King, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, is a British engineer and a crossbench member of the House of Lords, where she chairs the Select Committee on Science and Technology. She is the incumbent chair of the Carbon Trust and the Henry Royce Institute, and was the vice-chancellor of Aston University from 2006 to 2016.
Dame Julia Stretton Higgins is a British polymer scientist. Since 1976 she has been based at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, where she is emeritus professor and senior research investigator.
The Building Act 1984 is a United Kingdom statute consolidating previous legislation concerning the construction process, and the design and specifications for buildings and their component parts, and related matters, in England and Wales. The Welsh Government may make its own building regulations for Wales under this Act.
A sandwich panel is any structure made of three layers: a low-density core, and a thin skin-layer bonded to each side. Sandwich panels are used in applications where a combination of high structural rigidity and low weight is required.
Dame Ann Patricia Dowling is a British mechanical engineer who researches combustion, acoustics and vibration, focusing on efficient, low-emission combustion and reduced road vehicle and aircraft noise. Dowling is a Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and from 2009 to 2014 she was Head of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where she was the first female professor in 1993. She was President of the Royal Academy of Engineering from 2014 to 2019, the Academy's first female president.
Dame Lynn Faith Gladden is the Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge. She served as Pro-vice-chancellor for research from 2010 to 2016.
Cladding is the application of one material over another to provide a skin or layer. In construction, cladding is used to provide a degree of thermal insulation and weather resistance, and to improve the appearance of buildings. Cladding can be made of any of a wide range of materials including wood, metal, brick, vinyl, and composite materials that can include aluminium, wood, blends of cement and recycled polystyrene, wheat/rice straw fibres. Rainscreen cladding is a form of weather cladding designed to protect against the elements, but also offers thermal insulation. The cladding does not itself need to be waterproof, merely a control element: it may serve only to direct water or wind safely away in order to control run-off and prevent its infiltration into the building structure. Cladding may also be a control element for noise, either entering or escaping. Cladding can become a fire risk by design or material.
Kingspan Group plc is a building materials company based in Ireland, trading in over 80 countries with more than 210 factories employing over 22,000 people. The company operates with six divisions; Insulated Panels, Insulation, Light & Air, Water & Energy, and, Data & Flooring, Roof & Waterproofing.
Dame Susan Elizabeth Ion is a British engineer and an expert advisor on the nuclear power industry.
Dame Helen Valerie Atkinson is Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Cranfield University's School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing. She was previously Head of the University of Leicester's Department of Engineering and later Leicester's Graduate Dean. In 2010, she was designated one of the UKRC's Women of Outstanding Achievement and featured in the Women of Outstanding Achievement Photographic Exhibition. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2007, was a vice-president of the Academy from 2012 to 2014 and was elected to its Trustee Board in 2014.
Exova Group plc was a laboratory-based testing company, operating primarily within the Testing segment of the Testing Inspection and Certification (“TIC”) sector. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by Element Materials Technology in June 2017.
The Honours Committee is a committee within the Cabinet Office of the Government of the United Kingdom formed to review nominations for national honours for merit, exceptional achievement or service. Twice yearly the Honours Committee submits formal recommendations for the British monarch's New Years and Birthday Honours. Members of the Honours Committee—which comprises a main committee and nine subcommittees in speciality areas—research and vet nominations for national awards, including knighthoods and the Order of the British Empire.
The Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London is the centre of teaching and research in chemical and process engineering at Imperial College London, occupying the Aeronautics and Chemical Engineering Extension (ACEX), Bone and Roderic Hill buildings, on the South Kensington campus. Formally inaugurated in 1912, the department has over 40 faculty members, 100 postdoctoral researchers, 200 PhD researchers, 80 taught postgraduates, and 500 undergraduates. The department ranks 7th on QS's 2018 world rankings.
In 2016 the Women's Engineering Society (WES), in collaboration with the Daily Telegraph, produced an inaugural list of the United Kingdom's Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering, which was published on National Women in Engineering Day on 23 June 2016. The event was so successful it became an annual celebration. The list was instigated by Dawn Bonfield MBE, then Chief Executive of the Women's Engineering Society. In 2019, WES ended its collaboration with the Daily Telegraph and started a new collaboration with The Guardian newspaper.
On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. Seventy-two people died, two later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since World War II.
The Barking fire was a structure fire that occurred on 9 June 2019 at a newly built six storey block of flats named Samuel Garside House, located in De Pass Gardens, Barking, London, the United Kingdom.
Dame Catherine Elizabeth Bingham HonFMedSci is a British venture capitalist. She is a managing partner at a venture capital firm, SV Health Investors. In 2020, Bingham chaired the government's Vaccine Taskforce, steering procurement of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom cladding crisis, also known as the cladding scandal, is an ongoing social crisis that followed the Grenfell Tower fire of 14 June 2017 and the Bolton Cube fire of 15 November 2019. The fires revealed that large numbers of buildings had been clad in dangerously combustible materials, comprising a combination of flammable cladding and/or flammable insulation.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.
