The icare Foundation has established a $3 million pool to fund ideas to prevent injuries in the construction industry.

The foundation, which was established by Insurance & Care NSW, says the pool is available to individuals, organisations and consortiums, and aims to foster changes through “innovative, scalable” ideas that may come from beyond the industry.

Foundation GM Barney Smith says areas of focus include individual risk-taking and other behaviours, supervision and site safety culture, and industry-wide approaches that permeate down to an individual worker.

He says construction sites are “innately high-risk work environments – from the nature of the work such as operating machinery, contact with electricity and working at heights, to the complexity of having multiple contractors on site at once”.

About 45% of injury claims in construction came from workers aged 19-32, according to 2018 financial year data. Such injuries lead to a reduction in future earning potential as well as the loss of current income.

“We’re really trying to address the root causes of unsafe behaviours and accidents so we can reduce the number of injuries we’re seeing among our young workers,” Mr Smith said.

Potential funding recipients could include innovators, behaviour specialists, tech developers, research institutes as well as peak bodies and industry leaders.

Expressions of interest are open until August 23, with interested parties asked to outline their idea and how it will address the problem in up to 250 words.

For more information click here.