The world of work is facing major challenges due to rapid technological change, globalisation, climate change and the Covid 19 pandemic. Occupational safety and health professionals must address these challenges, but it is unclear how well their academic training programmes prepare them for this task.

Against this background, an international working group coordinated by ENETOSH has been addressing the question of how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 8 "Decent Work and Economic Growth", are integrated into higher education.

In its first phase of 2020 and 2021, the Task Group conducted an online survey on the current state of integrating SDG 8 in higher education, focusing on study programs in Occupational Safety, Industrial Hygiene, and Ergonomics (OSH), Occupational Medicine (OM), and Human Resource Management (Business and Management Schools) (HRM). 114 study programs from 90 universities in 29 European countries were included.

The results of this study were published online in April 2022 and printed in March 2023: https://academic.oup.com/occmed/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/occmed/kqac018/6573922

Core members of the first working group (2020 - 2023) were: Prof Dr Dingani Moyo, National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe; Ehi Iden, OSHAfrica, Nigeria; Prof. Dr (em.) Johannes Siegrist, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Germany; Prof Dr Ing Rudolf Schumachers, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Germany; Prof. Dr Lotta Dellve, Gothenburg University, Sweden - IAU Cluster SDG 8; Prof. Dr Esther Buregyeya, Makerere University, Uganda; Johanna Mai, DGUV - IAG Dresden, Germany; Dr Ulrike Bollmann, German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV) - IAG Dresden – ENETOSH

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Results of SDG 8 project published in November 2025

In the second phase of the project, from June 2024 to July 2025, an ILO working group led by ENETOSH and supported by the DGUV Academy (Institute for Work and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance) conducted an exploratory study on the integration of the UN Sustainable Development Goal ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’ (SDG 8) into study programmes at universities in seven African countries.

Following on from a study on the integration of SDG 8 at universities in Europe, nine guided interviews were conducted between September and December 2024 with academic heads of master's and postgraduate programmes in seven African countries (Botswana, DR Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe). The courses covered the areas of occupational medicine, safety and health (OM and S&H), environmental and public health, and human resource management (HRM).

African universities are implementing the ‘holistic university approach’ of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in a remarkable way. They are developing independent educational models that no longer follow the European model, but offer innovative responses to the challenges of a global, changing society.

The results of the study can be found in German in DGUV Forum 11/2025

Authors of this study are:

Dr Ulrike Bollmann, Founder of the European Network Education and Training in Occupational Safety and Health (ENETOSH)
Prof. em. Dr. Johannes Siegrist, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (HHU)
Johanna Mai, IKK classic
Prof. Dr. Dingani Moyo, National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Simbabwe
Dr. Ehi Iden, OSHAfrica, Nigeria
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Schumachers, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences
Anna-Maria Hessenmöller, DGUV Academy (Institute for work and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance, IAG)

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Main members of the former ENETOSH Taskforce 2 (2018-2019):
Dr Nuria Mancebo, University of Girona
Alan Cowen, University of Brighton

In addition, please find the following documents on the work of the Taskforce here (in PDF format):