092 - European Commission view on Performance Based FSE with Adamantia Athanasopoulou

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 0:01

Hello. Welcome to the fire science show. They am taking you to a trip to Brussels. Well, technically it's a trip to Istra in Northern Italy. But the stuff we're going to talk is very Brussless- ish. If I may. I have connected with an amazing person, Dr. Adamantia Athansopoulou from Joint Research Center of European Commission who has recently led the task. Um, they've published a massive, massive report on state of performance-based fire safety engineering in Europe. And that was my initial trigger to talk with Adamantia. But as you will see in this discussion, It's not covering that report only because we went way, way more into how fire safety regulations can be issued in Europe. Uh, the story of Eurocodes and how it is an example of good. development in, in communication between engineers, how European commission uses research to guide developments and, uh, What can they do with the knowledge that Adamantia found with her, with her group? On the state of performance-based research. I'm going to link the reports in the show notes. It's very useful to take a look into it I think for first time, I really saw uh, really pan-European overview of where are we are with fire safety engineering in it. And I really admire the amount of work done there by the group of the Adamantia and by her group of, uh, angel experts who were supporting European commission in performing this research. So yeah. A lot to unwrap in here, much more than just the contents of the report. Let's have a peek inside how European commission and fire safety regulations work in here. Let's spin the intro and john meets the episode Producing episodes. Like the one you're about to hear is possible. Because of the support I received from my diamond sponsor of the show, the, OFR consultants. OFR consultants are a multi award winning independent consultancy dedicated to addressing fire safety challenges. OFR as the UKs leading fire risk consultancy. It's globally established team has developed reputation for preeminent fire engineering expertise with colleagues working. Across the world to protect people property in planets in UK, that includes the redevelopment of Printworks building in Canada water. One of those residential buildings in Birmingham, as well as historic structures, like the national gallery national history museum. And the national portrait gallery in London, internationally work ranges from Antarctic to Atacama desert. in Chile and a number of projects in Africa. In 2023 OFR is growing its team and is keen to hear from industry professionals. Who want to collaborate on the five safety features this year? Get in touch at ofrconsultants.com. OFR, thank you for being a patron of this show. And thanks to you. being able to make this content for everyone.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 3:17

Hello everybody. I'm here today with, Dr. Adamantia Athanasopou lou from Joint Research Center of the European Commission. Hey, Aman Amania. great to hear. Have you in the podcast?

Adamantia: 3:27

great to be here. Hello to everybody.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 3:30

we've connected through Linkin and it was quite brilliant because I've discovered, a report that JRC has published on the state of fire safety engineering in Europe. And, uh, absolutely we're gonna talk about the reaper, a lot. But, uh, we've also briefly met, and I am fascinated, by you, your role and. Of European Commission. So, before we jump into the contents of the, of the magnificent, uh, report, please tell me how, how did you end up working on the state of, of Fire safety Engineering on, behalf of European Commission?

Adamantia: 4:03

Uh, okay. So I have to, share a detail important one before starting. I'm a civil engineer, a structural engineer. Uh, I'm not a fire safety engineer. And perhaps, I dunno, am I the first one in this show to, to not be, fire safety,

wojciech_wegrzynski: 4:18

we need to define what the fire safety engineer is first, then that's not a trivial task either.

Adamantia: 4:23

See. Good point. Very good point. So how, how we ended up, how, why I'm, I'm speaking about fire safe engineering in the first place. So I am a civil engineer. Um, graduated, uh, from the University of Patras in Greece. And then I wanted a big challenge in my life and crossed the ocean and found myself in University of Michigan in Ann Arbor usa, first, uh, I did my master's in PhD there, focusing on the, um, performance of, concrete low ride shear walls. These are the ones you will find in a typical parking structure and investigating how to use high performance fiber,

wojciech_wegrzynski: 4:59

Hmm.

Adamantia: 5:00

uh, working the laboratory. Uh, great five years time there, um, Europe, and there comes an opportunity to work. as a researcher for the European Commission, And I find myself in the jrc. This is the center of the European Commission. It is a science service of the European Commission. It has more than 2000. Um, Working on various, various fields, uh, in, in science and engineering, supporting the European Commission in the whole policy, production and development, uh, cycle. So giving expert opinion, scientific opinion, scientific data, recommendations to the European Commission. uh, JS is located in many countries around Europe. The largest side is found in Istra uh, northern Italy. And this is where I am also today, talking to you. So, um, I went to Jse, uh, that was in 2009. to work as a research fellow in the project, supporting, implementation of policies and standards for the construction sector. Nothing yet on fire. support mostly structural design because at the time, uh, the Euro codes were in development, uh, what are the Euro codes? These are the European standards for structural design, common European standards, common language, bringing together, design philosophies, design mentalities, design traditions in the word of structural engineering. great work done at that time. Uh, nothing yet on fire, but a lot of expertise and experience, acquired on how to bring together. Engineers and have common standards to design a building, a bridge, uh, silo, uh, a structure. in 2012, I moved back to my home country, back to university, teaching structural engineering, nothing on fire yet. I'm still ignorant about this field, you know, no, seriously, I'm a traditional Greek civil engineer, earthquakes and concrete structures. This is the, the typical, you know, path. Uh, so I'm teaching structural mechanic, structural engineer in concrete. And in 2000, um, 16, I'm called back to the j um, same location, ISRA, Italy, same unit called Safe and Security of Buildings Unit. and called back to a similar project like the one I was working, This time, uh, the Euro code were fully implemented. At the time in the EU member states, uh, success story, uh, if you think about, we're talking about more than 1000 experts working on design, on data, on standardization of structural design, and with huge momentum in adoption international. So now the project is a bit extended covering, policies and standards for sustainable construction, and also looking into new fields of application. Uh, and then starts the discussion about fire, why, uh, we were, uh, discussing about fire design at, at that point, 2016. Um, seeing technological developments and, and the need for improved energy performing buildings, uh, changing significantly, um, the built environment, uh, bringing new challenges for the European policy makers because at the JRC still we are supporting, the European Commission, most importantly, DG GROW, which is, uh, the partner dg. So, there seems to be a need, to look into fire safety design policies and standards. Um, an important um, point is that fire safety in the build environment. It is a national competence and regulated by the EU member states. So nothing can come out from the European Commission as a regulation of fire safety design. However, the commission, can play and plays an important role, uh, with complimentary activities, approaches, facilitating education and dissemination. Uh, so this is still, so it's in the radar fire designs in the radar of the European Commission. being in a unit with a lot of expertise in structural design, in experimental methods, in supporting Strategization comes there. So we start thinking about what to do, how to support, and unfortunately we are now in 2017 and there is the Grenfell Tower fire in the uk. So this was actually having fire safety in the radar of the European Commission, but then having really a bell ringing above our heads that, uh, you guys, you need to look into this

wojciech_wegrzynski: 9:21

we'll, we, we'll jump into, the, the next things, but I, I So we're gonna continue about the developments from 2017. What, what, what the story it is. And, uh, I love how you switched branches from, uh, earthquake engineering. I actually just hadn't, episode, with, researcher Negar Elhami-Khorasni from, uh, university of Buffalo. She's, uh, implementing a lot of stuff from earthquake engineering into probabilistic fire engineering. So we are somewhat familiar, well, maybe not very, but somewhat familiar with the concepts of, of earthquake engineering and how they play And It it's fantastic because, uh, the, earthquake engineering, the, the performance based engineering seems to play a, a significant role. And that is in fact something that, that you are burdened to research on behalf of, of J R C. Now, one, one thing that, uh, I, I really, like j r c is like a scientific institute within European Commission.

Adamantia: 10:11

Exactly, yes. it's like a scientific hub. Within the, the family of the European Commission? Yes. It is the only one, uh, within the European Commission. Yes, because all the other director of generals are doing policy work, but somehow they need scientific advice

wojciech_wegrzynski: 10:27

Uh, may, maybe I'm ignorant, but I, I've just learned that I didn't know that, that, uh, EU has its own, scientific resources and that's very reassuring to note commission is using, uh, science and scientists like you. to guide their decisions. And I, I, I truly hope they are being guided by the science. You have positioned Euro codes, as some sort of a success story for European Commission. We all know euro codes have their fire parts. you said that, commission cannot directly impose laws for countries as the fire safety is, is national prerogative. But in true Euro codes, that actually kind of happened because the European commission presented a very convenient way to do structural fire engineering with Euro codes, allowing some sort of, uh, freedom for countries because each can make, uh, its own national annex. is this, uh, the, optimal way for European Commission to affect the, the fire safety over the Europe? Or are there any other ideas? Because I think Euro codes worked quite well in this.

Adamantia: 11:28

Indeed. Okay. So the, the Euro codes as standards, as European standards, they are produced and published by CEN this is the, uh, European Committee ization, so they're not a direct product of the European Commission. so they are, they're published by, which is, a European organization. nonprofit private organization being supported by, um, the eu, um, member states how through the national standardization bodies. So each European member state has a national standards body that is directly involved in the work by, so Sand Works independently, uh, preparing the European standards. it does not send, will not do, you know, the work on its own. It responds to requests by industry, by practitioners, and even by the European Commission. now that we are talking about, standards, actually the ucos are in the process of evolution. Uh, the first generation was published, and now, we're almost there to the second generation. And this second generation comes because there was a mandate by the European Commission asking. For, new standards, for new Euro codes and for, um, enhancing their use, inserting new, um, demands and, and covering new topics. So there is, I would say, um, quite a direct communication between the European Commission and Senate. this is how, health standards, uh, the European Commission is, is, let would say, um, uh, working, uh, around safety, which is regulated by the EU member states. The Euro codes are standards, so it's up to the member states to, uh, decide their status, leave them a standards or make, make them oblig through insertion in corporation, in the national regulatory system. So it's up to the, to the country and the specificities of the regulatory system.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 13:21

But still, European Commission had a say because they issued a mandate to do them. so they, they said we need them because, Uh,

Adamantia: 13:29

We need them because of Yes. We, we need them because we need a common language, because we need common, uh, design practices. We need, uh, engineers to be able to work from one country to the other to support the single market.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 13:40

and I would assume a similar processes happened post Grenfell when, or, or maybe it was even before Greenville, for the harmonize European facade testing method. This was also something,

Adamantia: 13:51

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Stay, yeah. Start it again. Start it from European Commission and again, from Digi

wojciech_wegrzynski: 13:57

but okay, so, so European commission, indeed, maybe it does Not finish the work but it sets up what's being worked on. And I think that's, that's super important. And, and we ma many of us get, uh, people listening. The guests of the show have been on various CN committees. We, we know how it looks from, from the inside doing the standard work, but it's very, but the world, you know, of the Brussels is very remote. and and even if, if, if your Brussels is located in northern Italy in a, in a lovely landscape, it's still, uh, somewhat unaccessible, for us, uh, mortals,

Adamantia: 14:32

Not really, because we at the jrc, um, there's so many visitors every day, experts on, on, on various, um, fields to discuss with the jrc scientists on topics related to, to the work we are doing. So it's a really, it's an accessible site. It's, it feels different than Bruss,

wojciech_wegrzynski: 14:50

but it sounds so much better than brus. Like you got me at the Northern Italy part and now, now I just love it. So, we know what JRC is, uh, how European Commission is, uh, in the back of the legislation process over Europe. What's its, its role, now you started, uh, with Grenfell 2017 that, uh, issued a, a huge shift in thinking for the European Commission. So how was, the, the catastrophy at Grenfell perceived, and, how did it trigger further actions of your group?

Adamantia: 15:23

Okay. And, and, sorry, I take one step back also because we said that the European Commission kind of, uh, influences and supports the, the development of standards and going back to the Euro codes when such standards are are published. Then the European Commission took action. Supporting facilitative implementation through the development of tools, through education, through training, through dissemination. So the commission does not stop with the development of standard. The publication then takes action, making sure that these are, properly, implemented because having them just publish doesn't really mean anything. so support implementation within Europe and outside where there is such, such good, So because this also relates on fire safety, engineering and, and any possible harmonization in, in the future. So having done this work and having fire safety, you know, in the radar, there comes the, the Grenfell Tower fire in 20 it was really, uh, almost shocking, to see this, um, this incident. And the European Commission, uh, DG Grow, took immediate action and launched what is called the Fire Information Exchange Platform Fear. What is fi It is what, what, the name says it's initiative, A platform, facilitating corporation of member states representatives, bringing together all stakeholders in the world of fire safety, design, would be fire safety practitioners, engineers, uh, national authorities, firefighters. So breaking together all these experts to exchange best practices, uh, lessons learned, data challenges, what is lacking and what is really needed in the near future. Or discussing the long-term vision. So not regulating anything, but really collecting ideas and experiences because this was really lacking, in the, in the word of fire safety design.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 17:23

And at what point did, performance based fire safety engineering fall into the radar of, of this thinking?

Adamantia: 17:29

it was during the first meeting of the FI platform. So FI is, is launched, is announced. There is a, a wide call for participation. it went really well because people from the fire safety engineering and not from the fire safety word actually came together. There's the first meeting and discussing what would be the most important, I would say work, streams of work. So what should we focus on? And among the topics of focus, including, uh, data, lessons learned, there comes fire safety, engineering. Meaning fire, performance based design. It comes there as a specific request, uh, under the field initiative to look into fire, safety, engineering, and what, what this means for Europe. How to use, what is it? It was actually a, um, a term, used in the first meeting. And then a huge question mark, what is it? What is this? Why to look into this?

wojciech_wegrzynski: 18:24

And then you come in and you say It's easy. And then five years later we have the report.

Adamantia: 18:31

more or less, you're right cause it's five years later. So what happened after that first meeting? Uh, fire safety engineering. There comes the word engineering and there comes , uh, calling jrc. Um, hi guys. You're engineers. Uh, you're structural engineers, but can you help? have, you have experience with the construction sector, with supporting the development of standards. You have a huge experimental laboratory facility, the largest in Europe. Can you help us? and we said yes, we fail. We thought at the time, ready for the challenge. Yes, we can help, we can use the experience of the Euro codes. We have a bit of, um, understanding of fire set design because of the Euro codes fire parts. We have been dealing with structural fire design and we have in our mind, this idea of flexible standards because these are the Euro codes, the Euro codes, and this is why they are a success story. They give the guidelines, but allowing to countries freedom of choice where it is necessary, like actions, snow, um, theological conditions, seismic hazard. So there, there is a a lot of choices by the member states implementing the Euro codes. These are not fixed codes. There is the standard and then there is the national annex, which describes the choices by its country. So we say we think that with this mentality, the flexibility of standards, perhaps we can approach, um, the issue of fire safety design and look into fire safety engineering. So we said, yes, let's start this work. This was about 2018 maybe between, you know, discussions and then and agreements. That was more or less 2000. And, uh, at jsa, uh, as a team of, uh, at the time, uh, three engineers, civil engineers, uh, started looking into the issue of fire safety, engineering, studying, going to events to understand what is happening, bringing in contact with experts, uh, to try to see what, what we're talking about. and there comes the idea, uh, that this is a matter of collaboration again, of, um, exchanging ideas. because we understand that there is uh, there are differences in between the member states. There are different ideas. uh, each country is in a different state of, uh, understanding and, and implementation and, and, and practices. So we say we need to bring more expertise into this work. And in 2019, so you see how time passes by starting and looking into the topic. We're already in two 19 and JRC establishes an expert network on fire safety engineering, which is our angel network because these are the experts on fire safety design, uh, helping us with the work. this expert network coordinated by the jrc, it's a small network, so we are not, this is not like the fi fi is really wide participation, exchange of ideas, the network. It's more a small network of experts from academia industry. And firefighters, experts on fire safety engineering. So we are a bit, you know, focusing on, on the topic, on performance, based design. And we, uh, we call these people. At the beginning they were about 10, then expanded. We 15, 20 experts in the network to discuss the problem, the issue, and to see how to, we need to set a, what are we doing? How

wojciech_wegrzynski: 22:09

in the report, there's an annex a where you can, uh, find out who, who this mysterious experts are, and, and it, it is, uh, it is a brilliant group of, engineers, scientists, a really great mix of experts from different CN committees, from different European universities, from large laboratories, from fire brigade. for such a small group, a very diverse, uh, mix of experiences and backgrounds and, uh, definitely knowledge. So, uh, you as a group of engineers, not, uh, coming from the world of fire, you meet this, this group of fire experts One thing I cannot understand. How can you, how did you make them work on one coherent, document? It must have been, uh, so, so, so hard to, to achieve what you have achieved. Because what you have achieved is truly mapping the performance-based fire safety engineering throughout the whole European Union, including, uh, UK at that point. So it also maps, maps uk, uh, system, that this is something I've never seen in, in my career, that someone has managed truly, European overview that, that includes all views from Hungary to Spain to, to, to Sweden. Uh, that, that's, that's brilliant. So, tell me how this work did, uh, look like when, uh, when you were preparing that.

Adamantia: 23:33

So, um, talking about that, um, really, um, great, uh, group of experts, it's, it's really important to say that they are working on a voluntary basis. Which is, um, an interesting point because they all have their, uh, you know, their, their daily jobs. They're all passionate about, uh, fire safety design, and they're, uh, working with JSC on a voluntary basis. So, um, sharing expertise. So, not wanting, you know, to impose them, extra work and extra workload. What we were doing with them, we were kind of extracting their knowledge, they're extracting their views and us and jrc doing the, the work in terms of collecting information, mapping the situation, and writing down our observation. So, we made them a bit work for us by sharing their expertise and their, their views. It was obvious from the first meeting of the, of the network that what we are lacking is, is data and, and information on the situation. because we started looking for information about what is happening in Europe, concerning fire safety, engineering performance, fire safety design. We found some great, uh, relevant works by, um, CEN 127 and ISO TC92. There were, there were some surveys on the status of fsc, but these were targeting specific countries. So they were not targeting whole Europe because at the time, I suppose it was not possible. Uh, they were mostly dealing with countries that traditionally, are I would say, experts in fire, in fire safety, engineering. So they were not addressing whole Europe. And we said from the first, um, meeting that we need to understand what is happening in every single country in Europe and to extend this as to to include as many countries as possible that are involved in CEN so ization in the European uh, region. So that's why you will see also uk you will see also Serbia in the report to see countries that are involved with ST committees and to see what is happening, discussing with the network, uh, we say how to do this and comes the idea we need to do an inquiry. We need to go to the fire regulators in the EU member states, in the countries, and get their feedback. We need to be in a direct discussion with them because they're the ones that know exactly what is happening in their own countries. So 2019, we will do an inquiry on fire safety, engineering status, and implementation needs. And this is how the whole story of collecting data started. uh, obviously the idea was to do the inquiry through an online questionnaire. That was the easy, choice. But then the question was, what would be, the questions, uh, who would be the targeted, uh, responders? what are we dealing with? Are we dealing with, um, everything ready to fire? Safety engineering? Are we somehow tried to frame this? So this is again, how the experts, the network helped us help J by us to right direction by us. Their, so this is how we, we have been using the network and we manage and report.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 26:55

at the beginning I had an in impression that you, coming from the structural engineering world, your view of fire safety and what, what fire safety is would be someone related to the structural fire engineering. And now you are thrown into the world of, of detection, evacuation, smoke, toxicity, material properties. Uh, it's, probably very challenging world to enter. But, but this is also why, why your, uh, why your views on this are very, uh, valuable for, for us, for the fire safety community because we are all, closing our bubbles in our silos. Everyone from us fire safety engineers comes from a, a certain education and background, which imposes. Inevitable biases on you, Uh, it's very difficult to study, um, fire safety engineering as a whole thing because you're always, you know, biased in, in some way. You may have been biased towards structural fire engineering I would assume, but, but probably as, as you discovered more and more features of fire safety this probably altered your view. Now an important question is, but, but why? Okay. You want to map the fire safety engineering, but why European Commission felt it is necessary to map it at this detail? Or was it just, uh, your individual, decision that, okay, we need to map it at details because otherwise we, we lose the, the, the view.

Adamantia: 28:18

it was, is kind of, um, combination. It was, uh, performance fire, safety design was, uh, in, I would say in, in the list of factions of the commission to look into this this, this idea because perhaps, uh, this can, uh, help to better, um, support. Fire safe design practices in, in the European member states. And there also comes, our background from, from, jrc, instructional engineering because as you said, performance, uh, based design was a already incorporated in our mortality because this is how we design structures for, uh, structural design. So we are, we are used to performance based design. So it was a bit incorporated. having the commission not in the place to regulate fire safety, but in the place to support, training, education, sharing data. If, if we, if we, didn't map the situation, we couldn't decide on the next action. So if, if we didn't know exactly what was happening, how do we support and provide recommendations. So it was at this, I would say complete lack of information was the trigger to collect a data in such, uh, in such form and

wojciech_wegrzynski: 29:25

As a cornerstone for building up the next actions to really map out where are we, uh, holistically viewing everything from sprinklers to structural fire engineering and evacuation

Adamantia: 29:35

exactly. and also we, you know, we, we had inspiration when we were looking into our previous studies on fire safety engineering. We noticed that in all these studies, the field was actually broken into technical areas. So we, we saw immediately that we cannot talk about fire safe engineering with just one word. We need to break this into the technical areas, compartmentation, structural engineering. So we need to break this into and to understand what's the situation in every technical area, it could be that in one area, engineers are really using, uh, performance based design, but in another area,

wojciech_wegrzynski: 30:13

I, I can give you a very quick example from Poland where, for example, smoke control would be fully performance based. Like literally in, in the law it says you should design the system so it provides, safe evacuation without really going much further into it. So, so it's, it's fully performance based objective, whereas, uh, for example, structural engineering, it, it, it would be fully prescribed and operating only in fire resistance, not, not, uh, some sort of load bearing capacity in fire or, or any other aspects. Okay. You can go euro codes, but still, uh, the the, the basic regulations are very prescriptive based. So, so I guess every country would different shade in, in. , Um, from the summary, actually, faf Europe published a very nice and, and and short summary of, of this, uh, report. it seems that, that most of the countries have some sort of fire safety engineering application, however, it's super scatter. Like what was your bird's eye view on that? Just really everyone has something, but everywhere is different.

Adamantia: 31:16

Exactly. Cause um, you know, the, the, when we were collecting data, and I can come back later, how difficult it was to collect the data in the end, but the first, you know, analysis we did was enough of Europe, and showing its country if FSC is allowed or not allowed. You know, a very simple question we had in the inquiry, is it allowed to use FSC approach for fire safe designs in your country? Yes or no? And there we saw immediately that the answer was yes. That in theory, in principle, an engineer is allowed within the regulatory framework to use fire safety engineering approach. However, when going deeper into technical areas or are you really using fire safety engineering then the scatter is, is huge. So going from Yes, most countries, uh, are using, are allowed to use fsc, going to not really, we're not using, we're using, only in, in, in very specific cases or really not many case. So when we start breaking the, you know, making the analysis, breaking the answers into the details and the technical areas, not really. There are countries, that are more than 50%, I would say performance based design, even fully. And there are countries that are practically, uh, using, uh, prescriptive approaches, hundred percent despite having FSA approach, uh, allowed.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 32:40

but, your mapping also goes the other way. And I really enjoyed that way that you've also mapped where prescriptive design is used and what, uh, uh, regulations actually are guiding that in a particular country. And maybe you have not intended this as an output of your repo, but that that's a very useful like cheat sheet for an internationally working engineer to quickly, uh, take a look on what type of regulations to expect. For example, when I go to Slovenia

Adamantia: 33:08

E Exactly, exactly. Because you know, we, when we were doing this work, we were used to the Euro codes. So we were used to the idea that we have exactly an engineer, changing a country and, and doing the design of a bridge could go to the Euro codes again and having the same, you know, uh, um, family of standards and can do the work. So we say, what about fire site design? Can we have at least a, a list of the main, uh, regulation in its, um, member state? So what would the engineer use? If working in Slovenia, in Italy or France, and it was interesting because we saw that in, in, in some countries, in most countries, I would say in the last 10 years, there have been new regulations published, new improved, um, expanded, but there was some movement, however, still not a word about performance based design. So even though they were, uh, publishing new regulation, still the performance based design idea was not really present or if it was present, no tools available to support design, uh, with such an approach, which was, is again, um, a

wojciech_wegrzynski: 34:17

And another thing, you, you said that European Commission does not impose law, but can affect, uh, actions at various levels. So I would, see two, two of such levels. One is education and second being the, uh, certification, licensing the fire safety profession. Were there also things that you, you were trying to map out when doing this study?

Adamantia: 34:36

so, perhaps you were present in one of our internal meetings and when we're discussing the, the long-term vision or what's next? Uh, yes. That's the idea that, uh, the next step after the report, is to, to look into education and training, to see how the commission can, can facilitate education and training. And what about certification? And this is why we had the questions regarding these two topics in, in the inquiry to understand what is happening. And now we are trying a bit with the answers too. We did the mapping, but now we are doing the grouping. So we want to see common trends. To, to, to have countries in common group, you know, in one group saying, okay, this countries, there is some experience and expertise, let's say with educational training in this countries we see almost nothing in, in, in this other group. There's, there's something happening. So try to, to group the countries and also see what each countries doing in the certification level. See if there is a framework and if there is a framework. Is there any common trend or we are really talking about harmonizing from, from scratch. I would say, you know, starting from the basis and, working on, um, qualification

wojciech_wegrzynski: 35:48

but in this study, you have done mapping, but you have not done, um, assessing. you just show what countries are doing. You're not saying, okay, Italians have, uh, figured out this part, but, uh, the Flanders or Belgian government has, uh, really good approach to this. No, no, you're just mapping and, I would assume, uh, a view of what's working what's not working. It's somehow a future work. Is it?

Adamantia: 36:14

Exactly. Yes, yes, yes. And it is also interesting to note that, when we were doing this inquiry, one question we had to, to address and decide is who would be answering to this inquiry? So is it a wide inquiry? So we are opening the inquiry to all, Polish fire safety practitioners and asking their views, or we go to the fire, to the principle fire regulator of its country. So do we want views or do we need mostly facts? What is happening. And same previous studies going along the path of, uh, collecting use from the experts. We took the other path. So we say, no, we want principle one per country from the National Authority. And this is what I said previously. I will come back to the challenges in, in collecting data. Who is this person? Who is the principal fire regulator who is doing this job? And this was difficult. Um, and this is why we were collecting data answers for one

wojciech_wegrzynski: 37:20

Mm-hmm.

Adamantia: 37:21

The, The, inquiry was launched in November, 2020, and we closed having collected answers from all countries. We were targeting October, 2021.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 37:32

And, and, uh, did you have any mechanism to reassure this person is representative to the country, or, or this questionnaire is representative? How are you verifying the data?

Adamantia: 37:43

Okay. So, uh, initially when we, when we reached out to the fire regulators, there is a group, uh, managed by DG Grow, which within the construction family of, of groups under Digi Grow. It's a subgroup on fire. So every country has an official, uh, nomination for a fire expert to advise Did you grow. So these were the fir our first contact points. This is, uh, the person we reached out to. All these persons are national author, so they're not just a fire expert, they're working for the ministry or for the fire brigade, which is responsible for fire safety, uh, designs, review, and, and regulations. So we went to this experts. in some cases we, we received a response, right? And this was a response in many cases, consulted within the organization of the country. So it was by one person, but consulted within the, the group of the fire regulators. In some other cases, it was really impossible to get a response because that person was not responding, or was already in a different position, you know, not dealing with fire safety. And once again, this is when the network, the expert network, helped us. So we say, Hey guys, we are lacking responses from X countries. Can you help us identify who would be the right person to answer? Having the official, uh, authority, and this is how, you know, um, word of mouth through experts. We, we reached to the, to the right person uh, in this country. that took one year. It was, uh, it was really difficult to, to get the right person, but everybody, that answer is within part of the

wojciech_wegrzynski: 39:24

I, in front of my eyes, I have the, the graphics. And by the way, the visual part of the reer is, is mind blowing. It is beautiful. I really enjoyed reading the reer and I I really enjoyed the infographic style of data presented in it because you, we are talking here about very difficult statistics, very complicated, very challenging to understand, and the way how it is presented is, is a masterpiece. And I, I would, if, if anyone does not care about fire safety engineering in Europe, uh, you are welcome to not care, but you should just check it for the graphics as well. I have a graphics in front of my eyes show showing the, uh, the responses from countries and, and most of the map is, is covered with a single response. There is two responses for, from France which I understand were different responses, , which that's, that's

Adamantia: 40:19

Yes, yes. This

wojciech_wegrzynski: 40:20

Yeah, and I, I see there are, parts of Germany and, and, and Flanders region, which issued a separate response from their country, which I also find interesting. So, uh, different. Definitely. Uh, these are the things you have to take into account when you are mapping, uh, fire safety

Adamantia: 40:38

Yes. Because we had some conflicting, uh, national authorities saying, no, we are the, the, the author answer. No, not, really. We are the authorities. So this is why you're seeing some, uh, cases, this, uh, this,

wojciech_wegrzynski: 40:50

And, uh, out of 34 countries mapped, uh, only four were not, Uh, showing, uh, any allowance for fire safety engineering. It was Portugal, Slovakia, Bulgarian, Greece. Uh, how did you felt about Greece not having performance based

Adamantia: 41:05

uh, you know, okay. Another, thing to share with, with the audience is that I am Greek. if you check the other co-authors, one is from Portugal and the other one is from Bulgaria. So the core group of of authors, uh, were coming from countries not allowing, um, f approach. Uh, really was, it was disappointing, but also allow a to go deeper and really confirm that what the answer was is true because we could directly, uh, discuss with uh, with the responders and confirm that indeed it's not allowed. Because thinking about the Euro codes, in some cases f it practically allowed, at least for structural engineering. So the response was a bit, um, questionable. But the thing is, in this four countries also, Slovakia, there is no regulatory framework allowing, so the absence of allowance. Really saying it is allowed, it means no, it's not allowed. So it's also a matter of, um, interpretation. So yeah, so we're this group of three, um, engineers, researchers, Greece, Portugal, and, uh, Bulgaria. And I have to give credits for the visuals that you just commented on the fourth author France, Francesca Sciarretta because she was the, she's the fire expert in the group.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 42:23

And

Adamantia: 42:23

And she, her help in individuals was really instrumental because, um, we run the analysis many, many times. We, produced many, many visuals, you know, trying to see if I see, if I see it, will it make sense? Or someone will have to go in really detailing with the report. And, uh, Francesca, she really work on having these visuals in, in a way that are meaningful. Because the, it's a long data and also we, we kind of did a bit of trial and, and error, procedure, Since we were collecting data for one year, we didn't, uh, wait until the end of this period to run the analysis. We say, okay, we have eight answers. We do an analysis just to see what the situation, we go and present the analysis to, relevant events. So we even went to present the, the, the, the results, preliminary results in, in, conferences, in in, events, in, in Brussels, even before collecting answers from, from everybody. It helped because we were also, um, assessing the reactions. mess, is the method clear or we need to rethink the analysis? So that helped a lot because in the beginning it was really overwhelming. How, how do we present all this? Okay, we have our questions. How, how to do it?

wojciech_wegrzynski: 43:39

it it is very overwhelming. I, I guess we're gonna stop talking about the report contents itself. I will just tell The audience that. It goes really in depth, like, uh, which countries are using, uh, performance based engineering in terms of smoke control detection, sprinklers. It, it goes very, very deep into narrow things used in, uh, throughout the Europe. The questionnaire itself, which is also a part of the report, was very detailed. if you go and read the report on your own, I would highly require first going to check the questionnaire because that will, Quickly let you understand what, is the data collected and what can you understand, what can you find in the report, and then go through the analysis showing, uh, the, the replies and the statistical distributions and the differences. It's, it's a, it's really interesting to, to take a look on the picture of ourselves, our, our fire safety family in, in, in Europe. But now, now, I don't want to talk about the report to not run out of time because I really want to talk about conclusions and, and I think that's the most important thing. your first conclusion refers to the state of fire safety engineering, and I think we've covered a lot of that. in in our discussion so far. So next are three things, education, standardization, and, and future work. Let's start with education. So viewing this, uh, from, from the holistic perspective of the whole of the Europe, what are the findings of the repo and, and your recommendations towards educating The next gen generation of CEP engineers In Europe,

Adamantia: 45:16

Okay, so, so the first point that came out is that there is no, um, harmonized educational framework. So, there is not necessarily, a university level course on fire safety engineering throughout Europe. There is some countries, there is not in some other countries either a specific course, a master's level course. So each country has a very specific situation. being said that there's no education framework harmonized across Europe. There is no certification, uh, qualification network. Again, it's not harmonized because these are really interlink and this was obvious. So, education and qualification framework are linked. If you don't provide education, you cannot really, uh, work or impose a certification, uh, and, qualifications framework.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 46:04

sorry, what kind of, actions can European Commission take to resolve that? Uh, we, we have great examples of really successful education in Europe, international Masters of Fire Safety Engineering. I know Bart Merci was one of your secret experts in, in, in your group, So you had access To the best educators in, in Europe. How can European Commission Act on.

Adamantia: 46:27

the first way would be to share. The best practice examples. So again, it's through our report and through, um, you know, um, communication actions to share, uh, the best practice examples. Say we have X and y, examples of education. So let's say how they're doing and, and, and ask this experts to present how the program was structured, how all the actions were structured. So sharing the, the examples. Um, then, and linking this again to qualifications framework. So again, sharing what is being done in some countries. Uh, would this actually fit in, in, in throughout Europe, or thinking about how to harmonize. So I would say start, a bit lighter. What if we try to set up a, a harmonization framework for qualifications?

wojciech_wegrzynski: 47:18

Hmm.

Adamantia: 47:18

Can we, can we propose something, something that worked in some countries, perhaps giving some flexibility and trying to apply this in, in every EEU member state. I actually, this is why in the inquiry, we also ask the, the responders their views and not facts anymore about education needs. So we, we asked them, do you see a need for education and training in your country? The vast majority said yes. And do you see that need as, um, at university level, at, uh, you know, postgraduate level, firefighters, uh, training courses. There, there was a of responses. So practically they say yes to everything. Uh, yes, we need training in, in, in all, in, in all levels, which makes sense because each one, you know, the engineer, the fire prac, fire brigade, they have a different role. So it makes sense to ask for training, in all levels.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 48:12

If, you train, to obtain licensure or, or certificate or, or any approval, formal approval to do fire safety engineering in the, in, in your country. It's interesting that different countries also have very different systems. Uh, some would have national authorities, some would have fire brigade that is dictating solutions. They would have local authorities. in Poland we have very strong fire safety expert, the chartered ones. Uh, and it's like governmental chartered, some sort of group, uh, or institution that would give chartership. Uh, so, very difficult place to harmonize. But I guess, I guess, uh, the soft actions as promoting best practices and promoting, uh, good examples that work, I, I see this, uh, as a, as a huge possibility to advance further.

Adamantia: 48:59

Yes, we need to take small steps, to, to get to the long vision because, going back now to 2018, you know, what was the first, uh, idea We had us, uh, engineers at j c as a fire safety coach. we, we said that word that, that, that, that term in the beginning and after being involved in this, in this work, we, we, say, we are not in, in, in, in the place. We are not ready to talk about a fire safety code. We can talk about harmonization of procedures in design, in education, in trading and qualification framework because a, a European fire safety code perhaps would be something, I dunno, in 50 years time. Even further in the future, but harmonization seems feasible. So, again, as a next step now, uh, on a study I would call on FSC education at university professional level. to, to see what's again the situation, using the inquiry and perhaps also doing a new inquiry, but not now for the fire regulators, but to them, experts that are involved really on, in education and training. compare the, the, the paths to educate FS engineers, uh, to understand the tasks. It's, um, the fire engineer is asked to perform in its country, so to understand what the fire engineer is doing or not doing, and and this is how to go further. Again, it'll be, as you said, it's again, a mapping exercise, but this is one of the most important activities in the commission before taking any action. Mapping, comparing and understanding

wojciech_wegrzynski: 50:40

you're completely ruining my views of bureaucracy at the European level now because this sounds reasonable. And , as you can imagine, my view was a little opposite of that. So thank you for for, for that. Okay, the next thing, standardization and research needs. So you said the code is, uh, Well, if we had a Euro fire code, that's probably a, a half decade ahead and, uh, which means it's probably not gonna happen ever. I, I, maybe like, you know, uh, in sometimes we get this, uh, period of bravery when in three years we do something that 50 years could not accomplish. Maybe we will have such a period of bravery in the European fire safety, family. But it doesn't look, it's gonna happen very, very soon. and now you've recognized the needs in standardization and, research. You actually put that in the same paragraph. So, so let's go there.

Adamantia: 51:37

Yes, because, okay, yes, we put that in the same paragraph from the work. These were, again, the views of the regulators, but I think it is important because, uh, they, they express what they're missing, what they see is lucky. from the report, we identify topics ization, so, uh, trying a bit to frame what to do next. and I think standardization and research, they're a bit interlinked. Okay. Research. Comes first and then standards, take the outcome of research to put it into, into a code. But what we, what we saw, um, most responders were asking for, design fires and, fire scenarios. They see this really lacking if there is the way to, um, implement, fire safety engineering approach, fire safety, performance and acceptance criteria. There were, there was, there is a long list, but these were as the, let's say, the top topics, uh, identified as research and authorization needs. So for us at the JS C, um, this is, also a matter of, let's say assessment because in the research part, there can be also some. at jrc there are huge, um, experimental facilities. yes, there is the expertise in in structural and earthquake engineering. Uh, but, uh, lately there have been also some, um, uh, work on fire, even at the jrc. So there's one thing about even research that could be even done at JS C, but then there are so many, uh, European institutions, you know, capable to go the research

wojciech_wegrzynski: 53:14

Does this mean that somewhere on the horizon there would be, uh, CN subgroup devoted to, to this something like ISO TC 92?

Adamantia: 53:24

There is, there is already, there is C one to seven.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 53:28

one to seven. Okay.

Adamantia: 53:29

and there is a, a working group, uh, within the one to seven on fire safety engineering, but they're not doing research. They are trying to see how to take all the, you know, the outcomes of research and put them in, in a standard or in umbrella. They call sometimes document on performance, based fire design. So there is, as with all standards production, it takes time because it requires consensus and building consensus. Uh, it is

wojciech_wegrzynski: 54:03

I I asked it because, now that, that you mentioned that there's, I, I, uh, sent one to seven. Uh, of course there, there's the group by and others, other groups who also was a part of your, of your expert network. there, there are these groups, but we do not have a standard on design fires. We do not have standard on smoke yields. We do not have standard on, on human, uh, travel speeds and, and factors that influence that. This is all knowledge that you can gain only through scientific literature and maybe resources like S f P handbook or other renowned, uh, uh, pieces. Uh, so, so it would be, great if, if this could be standard. I, I'm saying that, as a member of a group that uh, develops the, the standards for smoke control. And in our groups we spend considerable amount of time discussing design fires, which we shouldn't probably not do because, uh, it's not an we should define how to calculate the mass flow through event, not, Uh, calculate how one should define the fire. But we need, because it's undefined and, and without this definition, we're unable to really provide performance based engineering in, in this field. So I appreciate that this is a recognized area, area for future development, But in terms of just general, uh, safety engineering path or performance based engineering, was there, any, uh, recommendation that maybe, uh, a standard on performance based engineering should, uh, should come to life or Not, really?

Adamantia: 55:30

not face like this, maybe it's too early. there was the, comings, I would say recommendation observation from the report that the regulators are, asking for the allowance of, uh, FSE approach in fire design, especially in, in, in cases where prescriptive approaches cannot be applied. Uh, we're not talking about just residential buildings because in the report you also see cases in which countries are using FSC because there is nothing, nothing more. So the recommendation is that, Um, there, is a request for performance based design allowance in far safe design and the request to have the appropriate tools.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 56:12

Mm-hmm.

Adamantia: 56:13

to apply performance based design. So there is a lack of tools and and request to develop such tools and being available through standards, guidelines, manuals somewhere, documented so that, the fire. engineers can use them.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 56:28

I'm not sure if we need a European standard on that because, uh, resources exist. There's a very good German standard that has been published in English and, and, uh, revised in German. Hope we get the revision, uh, somewhere soon. There is, SFP has been championing performance based engineering for years. uh, and now we have established SF Europe and, uh, SFPE is, is working hard on the revision of performance based engineering, uh, code, which is, is gonna be ANSI code in, in us. So, uh, a lot of efforts are already happening and, uh, I believe, you would get more for your Euros spent researching the, the missing points that you've just mentioned. And they're probably the more difficult ones to obtain, uh, than, than the

Adamantia: 57:13

Exactly, exactly. This is one of the reasons why we dropped the idea of a European fire safety code because, uh, there are already committees working on something similar either in Europe or internationally. There is expertise in usa. And so we said we should not produce something from zero. We need to see what is happening and perhaps to say we are missing, design fires, for example. And let's bring, let's put together all the research on that field in, in one document, in a standard, in a guideline. So, uh, it is exactly as you said there, there, there is a lot of work done, but I it's clearly documented. It is not always easy to find what is happening. and, and because I'm thinking about, you know, single engineers in English, uh, that, um, they're not really allowed to apply FSE approach, but they're dealing with a building that cannot be designed with a prescriptive, uh, method. So where should they turn to? What, what to use? So I'm thinking the engineer, it'll be good to have documents. Giving all the information, uh, necessary. Of course, then you have the engineering judgment. It will be the engineer to, to assess how to use the the information. But let's give the information to them.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 58:34

and, and my prediction for the next 20, 30 years if I'm in any place to make predictions. But, uh, my, my prediction is that, Almost every building will be innovative the technology is, is moving so quickly, the design solutions are moving so quickly and they are so interlocked together. You know, a change in building envelope leads to a completely different energy performance, which you can then combine with a specific energy source, uh, a specific heat management system that leads to completely different requirements in ventilation, moisture control, glazing, Everything, changes. And, and, and, and it's, it's very, connected to this particular building because a different building which just has a different detail of its envelope may have the whole further domino set up completely different way and. And both with will affect, uh, fire safety in a very specific way, in a different way. And their prescriptive codes are in no position to, uh, to, to handle that because they would become so complex, they would become performance based engineering themselves in a way. so I, I see a, bright future on, um, for fire safety engineering in, in Europe. Now for the final, uh, conclusion, what's the future? What's the direct future work, the, the next one step that's probably already happening at the commission at the J R C? where are we heading now?

Adamantia: 1:00:04

okay. So um, first thing is that Fi, the Fire Information Exchange platform is, is active and it's doing a lot of, dissemination work. So their, their webinars, conferences, events, and, whoever is interested or working in the area of fire design is, is mostly welcome to participate, to join FIEP so this is one, one, and it goes, it goes forward. the Expert Network, uh, run by Jsc is, is active and we will continue the, the collaboration with, with them. And then, uh, JS C is. And trusted with the work on Fire Safe Engineering. So it goes forward. And, now the, we're in the face of examin the report, uh, as widely as possible because it is important to collect feedback. So this podcast is, is great. presenting the report in scientific, uh, conferences and four is also important and we want the feedback. So we don't just want people saying Great report, and, and stopping there. We want them to share their their views. also the next, the next is about education and training, qualification frameworks, finding that missing link between education and, and licensing and qualifications. recognize trends, in countries. So what I said about, uh, privately, previously about grouping. Especially with fire design approval process, who does what? even work a bit on, on definitions of terminology, uh, on fire safety engineering. There is work done by safety consultant is safety engineer. What, What, is it? I mean, do we agree or

wojciech_wegrzynski: 1:01:50

we started with this question, we, we started with this exact question on the podcast. Yes.

Adamantia: 1:01:55

Do we know? I, I don't think so. and identify, big gaps and best practices. So bring, to life best practices and, uh, see what the big gaps in trying to, to close them. and also, again, going back to education, the different paths of education offered by countries and, and, and, and harmonize. So, we continue, I would say along the same path, what comes out from the report. So we work on the conclusions and trying now to assess them and to collect more information on, on the conclusions. And also, it was a big discussion if we should further, um, understand, uh, the reasons for non allowance or the practical non-use of FSE uh, but I think this will be strongly linked to, to education and expertise in.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 1:02:43

Fantastic. Adam Mania. Thank you so much. I think it was, a priceless interview for anyone, uh, interested in performance space, fire safety engineering in in, in Europe or anywhere as its gives a very unique insight to, to how things are being made and, uh, very reassuring to understand that science is, the base of developments in Europe. It, it's, uh, I can't believe this. It's amazing. It's like it should be. Wow.

Adamantia: 1:03:13

I'm glad because I'm sure you, you said it and I I would say the same some years ago. I, I'm sure people don't understand what is happening in the commission and not behind the scenes. There's so many regulations coming out, but, uh, really in many cases, not in all cases, there is some science behind and it, it feels good to be part of that, um, of that process. So thank you. Thank you for having me in the show and maybe in, in, in a future show, I will be able to say I came a bit closer to fire safety engineering, ideas and concepts to call myself perhaps, I dunno, not a fire safety engineer, but a bit more knowledgeable in the

wojciech_wegrzynski: 1:03:55

you, are the best fire safety engineer among earthquake engineers I know. So you, you can hold that title

Adamantia: 1:04:01

Okay. I take this title,

wojciech_wegrzynski: 1:04:03

and maybe you want to experiment in yourself with the proper fire safety engineering curriculum and, and find out ways what, what works and what does not.

Adamantia: 1:04:11

Could be,

wojciech_wegrzynski: 1:04:12

once again, you so much.

Wojciech Węgrzyński: 1:04:15

And thats it, thank you Adamantia for coming through the fire science show. It was a huge pleasure to have you and share some insight on how European commission and its research arm. The joint research center works. I find myself ignorant. I had no idea it works like this. And the episode was really reassuring in the way that European commission actually uses science and knowledge to create new regulations and Maybe not create the regulations, but to issue. Requests for new regulations and then was regulations are put in place or once codes are being created. They have so many ways to affect how they are shared and used within the Europe. So a very interesting view of very refreshing. Plus the work they've done on the report is just astonishing. You really have to take a look into the report if you, If this interview did not convince you that you need to take look into the report. I have no idea how to convince you even more, but it's really worth the time just to skim through it and see, where are we with fire safety engineering in Europe. So, thank you very much for being here with me. there are some great stuff coming next. Week's. Uh, for you. So I better get back to my production studio and start working on those so much material to. To work on in the meantime, if you enjoy this show, I would highly appreciate if you could leave me five star review in your podcast application of your choice, or maybe on my website. These things go a long way. So as always. I highly requested you do that. And I also requested you share this show with your friends who may be interested in fire safety. That's it for today. Thank you so much for being here with me. See here next week on Wednesday.