• Project number: F2587
• Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
• Status: Ongoing Project
• Planned end: 2029-08-26

Description:

Machines have to be designed to fulfil the essential health and safety requirements of the European Machinery Directive. This helps to prevent employees being put in danger in workplaces. In order to convey the necessary requirements and knowledge about machinery safety to students at the university level, a blended learning concept for product safety was developed some years ago on behalf of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, BAuA): PROSUmEr - Product Safety in the University Education.

PROSUmEr is now to be expanded and updated for the continuing professional development (CPD) of market surveillance authority employees and adapted to their needs. In Germany, the market surveillance authorities of the individual German federal states are responsible for the implementation and oversight of the relevant European legislation, the Machinery Directive and the Machinery Regulation. The supervisors working in this field may originally come from other areas of activity and have not always been trained in product safety or the complexities of machinery safety. The increasing demand for skilled workers will make it more difficult to recruit and hire market surveillance specialists, and the range of substantive issues they have to deal with will also continue to grow every broader, so constant training and CPD will be essential. The customs authorities are responsible for the initial inspection of machines being imported into the European internal market from non-EU countries and have to check whether they comply with the Machinery Directive/Machinery Regulation. These authorities are another important target group who could apply the teaching concept, as they are likely to have far less expertise in product safety than in customs law.

In addition, the PROSUmEr blended learning concept has to be adapted to the new requirements of the European Machinery Regulation ((EU) 2023/1230), which came into force in July 2025 and will be legally binding from January 2027. This is the first legislation to address new risks from innovative technologies such as interconnectivity, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence. The further development of PROSUmEr will address these changes and new needs, making it easier for market surveillance authorities to communicate important practical knowledge to supervisors.