Abstract
Germany's chemical and petrochemical industry is the largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Hence, high competence in chemical engineering including safety engineering is - amongst others indispensable for keeping this position. ProcessNet, an initiative of Dechema, supported the exchange of relevant knowledge and experience in process and plant safety (PPS) since long. The Research Committee of ProcessNet published already in 1997 a curriculum on PPS. Just about that time it began to show that safety engineering shifted out of the focus of many professorships since both national and European research programs in this field expired. The Research Committee was concerned about adverse developments with respect to both teaching and research and started in 2004 a still standing competence initiative (Dechema 2004). Convincing government, universities and industry that something should be done to avoid a loss of necessary competence in PPS, it was necessary to update the "Teaching profile Safety Engineering" and to propose a research strategy for PPS.
