Fire Safety Engineering

The University of Edinburgh established research in the field of Fire Safety Engineering in the early 1970s and today has the largest group of postgraduate researchers and academics specialising on fire science and fire safety engineering research in Europe.

The Edinburgh Fire Research Centre was formed over a decade ago and has forged strong links with a number of industrial partners in the UK, Europe and further afield.

We are a world-class research fire centre with 40 research members from more than 18 different nationalities.

Many of those who are now leaders in the field came to Edinburgh to study and research under the supervision of the late Prof David Rasbash, one of the main pioneers of the discipline, Prof Dougal Drysdale, author of the definitive text book on the subject, "Introduction to Fire Dynamics" (Wiley, 3rd edition 2011), and Prof Jose Torero who was the BRE/RAE Chair in Fire Safety Engineering until 2012. Prof Albert Simeoni and Prof Grunde Jomaas held the Chair from 2012-2016 and 2016-2021, respectively. Teaching and research in fire safety continues at Edinburgh under the leadership of Prof Luke Bisby.

The Edinburgh Fire Research Centre exists to:

  • Equip tomorrow's leaders in the field with the skills they require
  • Support today's fire safety with multidisciplinary research
  • Provide first-class education in Fire Safety Engineering and Structural Fire Engineering
  • Deliver fire safety consultancy services to industry and other consultancies
  • Disseminate information about advances and research in fire safety engineering through courses, symposia and publications

Further information

Teaching and research in fire safety at Edinburgh
Teaching and research in fire safety at Edinburgh