The importance of aging of infrastructures, networks and industrial plants will continue to increase because of (a) need to continue operation of these infrastructures, networks and plants beyond the design life-time, (b) need to operate under changed conditions and (c) the increased role of existing plants in the optimized (“smart”) supply and utility networks of the future, e.g. as fall-back supply. The effective agreed strategies to address aging issues are yet to be developed and consistently applied. The project, SafeLife-X, will contribute to creating consensus on aging management including potential cascading and/or ripple effects. It will, thus, satisfy the demand within various industrial sectors and help match the EU Grand Challenges and the EU-2020 Strategy, and achieve goals of main stakeholders (e.g. EC, OECD, ECTP, ETPIS…).

The project will create a multi-disciplinary / multi-sector community able to answer the key issues related to aging at EU & International level. The consortium includes members of the EU Technology Platforms ECTP (construction) and ETPIS (industrial safety) and a group of 25 experts to complement the expertise needed, and will be open to all interested parties. This community will meet, share experience and prepare a common vision for the future and main elements needed to realize it. The project will capitalize on best practices of modeling, asset integrity management, decision making, and cost-benefit analysis. CEN Workshop Agreement(s) will be initiated in the course of the project and the development of one European Standard (EN) on “Risk-Based Inspection Framework” pursued. New projects will propose input for Horizon 2020 within the Strategic Research Agenda & Roadmap. SafeLife-X will explore the issue of aging as an opportunity for new technologies, services and businesses primarily in service and construction sectors, the latter being the largest EU industrial employer representing 9.9% of the GDP and 14.9 million operatives.