Our goal

The Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, BAuA) is Germany's leading departmental research institute dedicated to safety and health at work. Our goal is to ensure jobs are safe, healthy, humanely designed and productive in a dynamic world of work.

Our mission

Through research and development, policy advice, regulation and knowledge transfer, we actively shape tomorrow's world of work. We identify risks to employees' safety and health at an early stage and develop solutions. We are committed to ensuring that chemicals, products, work equipment, and their applications do not pose unacceptable risks to safety and health and that working conditions are human-centred. Our research promotes employees' health and long-term ability to work and we develop prevention concepts to address the entire range of occupational health risks.

Our tasks

Research with long-term perspectives is our foundation as a respected institution with a high reputation in the field of occupational safety and health.

Our work is consistently guided by high scientific and ethical standards of integrity and transparency. We conduct our research responsibly and independently. We contribute our findings to national and international scientific discourse and advance our research cooperations.

Our research, cooperations, and systematic reviews of the current state of knowledge provide a sound basis for decision-making in occupational safety and health. We operate at the national and European levels.

By communicating knowledge tailored to different target groups, providing policy advice, and transferring knowledge into practice, we ensure our findings have relevant impact. Through the Federal Office for Chemicals (Bundesstelle für Chemikalien, BfC), we create best-possible systems of regulation that take into account occupational safety and health, environmental protection, and consumer protection, as well as benefits for society. The DASA Working World Exhibition (DASA Arbeitswelt Ausstellung) enables us to share our findings and ideas for a humanely designed world of work with a broad public.

Our values

Our employees’ health is a valuable good

Safe, healthy, human-centred work is not only a subject of research, but also a principle we apply within our own organisation. A strong, modern health management system, employee-focused, differential work design, and a sound balance between work, life and family are therefore a matter of course at BAuA.

We treat each other considerately and respectfully

All our employees play a vital role in the success of our work. We are supportive, fair, and open with each other. We learn from mistakes. We respect and embrace the diversity of our employees, for example in terms of gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, age, social background, ethnic origins and nationality, physical and mental capabilities, as well as religion and beliefs, in line with our shared values. We are committed to ensuring equal participation for all.

We promote good, modern leadership

Transparency regarding roles, objectives, and expectations, as well as involvement in decision-making are integral to successful collaboration between employees and managers. We recognise the high demands placed on both our staff and leadership and provide them with the best possible support.

We foster a culture of learning and training

We promote our employees’ individual strengths. We encourage them to advance personally and professionally across their various disciplines and professions.

In a dynamic world of work, we put the individual at the centre

Drawing on numerous specialist disciplines, technical expertise, and a highly competent administration, we systematically develop our processes and structures to enable appreciative, creative, human-centred, inclusive teamwork. We reflect on our working methods and explore innovative approaches.

We take responsibility for sustainable development

We design our work to meet the challenges of the future. To this end, we use the resources at our disposal carefully. We continually increase our eco-efficiency and promote a keen awareness of climate action and environmental protection in all our areas of activity.