Steinbeis Advanced Risk Technologies Group (R-Tech)
is the cluster of units belonging to and/or linked to Steinbeis (www.stw.de). Over 700 Steinbeis units present in 50+ countries worldwide act today as a global player in the area of innovation management and technology transfer. The group of Steinbeis units working in the area of “Advanced Risk Technologies” deals with multiple aspects of risks, risk engineering and risk management appearing, for instance, in:

• petro-chemical and process plants
• power plants and energy supply
• material technologies, especially advanced material technologies
• new & alternative technologies (CO2, H2, nano, …).

Main aspects of risks dealt with are:

• risks in/of innovation (e.g. risks of unexpected side-effects)
• risk of non-performance or performance below expectations (e.g. risks of system or component failures)
• risk of adverse/unexpected effects and impacts (e.g. on public health and/or environment)
• risks over the life-cycle of products and technologies (e.g. unexpected problems in decommissioning or recycling phase)
• project risks, especially in innovation, R&D and new technologies oriented projects.

Organizing European and national stakeholders, promoting and supporting technology transfer, introducing new approaches to the risks and their management, developing specific methods and tools are examples of these activities.

R-Tech is also one of the five founding members of  European Virtual Institute for Integrated Risk Management EU-VRi. The institute (www.eu-vri.eu) is an EEIG (European Economic Interest Grouping). The group is capable to cover the above topics either on its own or in close co-operation with Steinbeis network, European Virtual Institute for Integrated Risk Management (EU-VRi), Virtual Institute of Knowledge-based Multifunctional Materials (KMM-VIN), European Technology Platform Industrial Safety (ETPIS) and other networks (all involving over 2,000 persons and over 500 companies).
The activities of the R-Tech group involve projects and activities on industrial, national, EU, and international level, tackling, e.g.:

• integrated management of risk related to new technologies (FP7 project iNTeg-Risk)
• risks of impacts and/or non-performance of nanocontainer technologies, new bio-fuels in aerospace industry (Alfa-Bird), slurry coating technologies (FP7 projects MUST and Particoat), etc.
• governance and regulatory aspects of risks in industrial plants falling under the EU Seveso directive (EU project F-Seveso).

In order to provide the optimal service and results, the R-Tech group has dedicated units for specific area of “advanced risk technologies” such as:

• technology transfer
• education
• R&D
• industrial services (“business-oriented”)
• EU-related issues

Large web-based system iRiS (Integrated Risk Management System) and its derivatives have been developed for the petroleum and power industries and have been applied worldwide. R-Tech supports ETPIS - European Technology Platform on Industrial Safety, coordinates activities in the area of emerging risk and has leaded the activity on standardizing the EU approach in the area of RBI (Risk Based Inspection), leading to the CEN WA document 15740.