Since April 2019, ADAPT has been involved in the research project Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Legislation and Insurance Coverage in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The project is co-funded by Italy’s National Institute for Insurance against Workplace Accidents (INAIL) and has been commissioned to the Centre for International and Comparative Studies of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (DEAL), in collaboration with ADAPT’s School of Higher Education in Labour and Industrial Relations. 

The main goal of the project is to study the profound changes taking place in today’s world of work resulting from the digitalization of labour, which has produced tremendous consequences also in relation to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). Arguably, the implementation of new technologies and the need to protect workers’ health and safety can be seen as two sides of the same coin. Examples of this are: innovative forms of interaction between man and machine in the age of powered exoskeletons; the coexistence between intelligent robots, humans and wearable technologies; the impact of technology on production, work organization (e.g. working anytime anywhere) and on some fundamental aspects of businesses, which are increasingly characterized by complex networks and so-called “fissurisation processes”.

In both man-machine interaction and new forms of organization, the changes produced by technology entail new types of protection and new risks for workers, a situation that has an effect on the safeguards and obligations laid down by legislation regulating OHS and employee insurance.