Occupational Safety and Health as an Innovation Driver

Improving working conditions and promoting employees' motivation and ability to perform boosts capacity for innovation and corporate competitiveness. The Preventive Occupational Health and Safety funding priority of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has established a platform to address the challenges of the modern work environment from the perspective of occupational health and safety policy. Demographic change is influencing general conditions, and Preventive Occupational Health and Safety needs to be repositioned accordingly. The integration of health and safety into work practices and the support of cross-company stakeholders are prerequisites for successful integration of prevention within companies. This article discusses the relationship between capacity to innovate and prevention in terms of the current dilemmas surrounding the potential for innovation (cf. Sect. 1). These dilemmas characterize the challenges addressed by the Preventive Occupational Health and Safety funding priority and its focus groups (cf. Sect. 2). To this end, the findings of the focus groups vis-a-vis the respective issues are presented in summarized form (cf. Sect. 3). Based on the approach of “Taking prevention forward”, the research results are summarized and the potential of prevention as a field for future development explored in the “Aachener Impuls zur betrieblichen Gesundheitsforderung und Pravention in der modernen Arbeitswelt” (“Aachen Impulse on the promotion of occupational health and prevention in the modern work environment”). The article concludes by presenting the funding priority within the context of European prevention strategies.