Abstract:

The safety of university laboratories is fundamental to fostering high-quality talent and sustaining the production of high-impact research outcomes. To bolster the management capabilities for mitigating safety risks in university laboratory zones, this study introduces a novel safety risk assessment framework based on an extensive risk profiling of 135 laboratories in Nanjing, China. This framework encompasses six primary indicators: fundamental safety conditions, hazardous materials management, equipment, facilities, and processes, safety risk mitigation, emergency preparedness, and personnel safety competencies. These primary indicators are further refined into 29 secondary indicators and 69 objective evaluation criteria. Additionally, the study delineates a scoring protocol and computational methodology to mitigate subjectivity in the assessment process. Through comprehensive evaluations and comparative analyses of results from three laboratories across two universities, the scientific rigor and applicability of the new framework were validated. The evaluation results underscore that the framework can effectively assign scientific ratings to laboratory safety risks and accurately reflect the risk status of laboratories across various dimensions. This new framework is adaptable to different types of laboratories, addressing the issues of previous assessment standards being vague and indicator sets being incomplete, thereby significantly enhancing the level of granular safety management in university laboratories.

Key words:  ')">

 , University laboratory；safety risk；laboratory safety；risk assessment system