Introduction and commercialisation of hydrogen as an energy carrier of the future make great demands on all aspects of safety. Safety is a critical issue for innovations as it influences the economic attractiveness and public acceptance of any new idea or product. However, research and safety expertise related to hydrogen is quite fragmented in Europe. The vision of a significant increased use of hydrogen as an energy carrier in Europe could not go ahead without strengthening and merging this expertise.

This was the reason for the European Commission to support the launch on the first of March 2004 of a so-called Network of Excellence (NoE) on hydrogen safety: HySafe [9].

With its 6th Framework Programme the European Commission has introduced these NoE’s as a new tool to facilitate collaboration within organisations with expertise in a given topic (hydrogen safety for instance). Ultimately, this collaboration should turn into integration of research programs and eventually integration of resources. Technical excellence and optimised research are tangible outputs of this integration.

Besides the development of an integrated, competitive scientific and industrial community in Europe on hydrogen safety, HySafe intends to be capable of jointly addressing the challenges presented by the safe transition from current fuels to a regular use of hydrogen in daily life. Technical expertise and activity encompass hydrogen release, ignition, fires, explosions, risk assessment and mitigation techniques.