‘Institute’ refers to the Indian Institute of Science and includes all its extended campuses.

‘Laboratory’ refers to a room or space or field used for research, teaching, measurement, or operations. Often laboratories are fraught with chemical, radiation, biological, radiological or other hazards. For the purposes of this policy, the term also includes the pathways along which material is carried from one laboratory to another, storage areas, and preparatory spaces.

The ‘Office of Laboratory Safety and Environmental Health (OLSEH)’ is an office approved by the Council consisting of Environment Health and Safety (EHS) Officers. Its responsibility is to implement Safety Policies.

‘Safety Committee’ is a Committee consisting of faculty members/staff nominated by the Director to oversee and supervise OLSEH and to formulate Safety Policies for the Institute.

‘Department Safety Champion’ is a designated permanent staff or sufficient authority appointed by the Department Chair (or Centre Chair) to oversee safety in a Department/Centre. Every Department/Centre must have a Safety Champion.

‘Employee’ includes any person employed on the Institute’s premises, either directly or through an agent. It includes anyone working on the premises, whether on remuneration, on a stipend, or voluntarily. It includes temporary and/or contract employees, whose terms of employment are expressed or implied. It includes faculty members, whether tenured or on contract, contract workers, post-doctoral scholars, research associates, probationers, project staff, trainees, and interns.

‘Principal Investigator’ or PI, is an Employee, often a faculty member or scientific staff member, under whose supervision an experiment or any other activity is being undertaken in a laboratory.

‘Users’ includes every person using the laboratory, equipment, research infrastructure and other facilities on the Institute’s premises. Most often, these are employees and students. Users can also be short-term and long-term visitors, with the term applying to foreign exchange students, visiting faculty, collaborators, interns, parent/sponsor institutions, employees of companies, and individuals who temporarily access facilities at the Institute under any arrangement.

‘Contractor’ is an entity or person who renders services, provides work, or supplies contract labour to the Institute. This includes the tiers of sub-contractors who may be employed by the contractor.

‘Incident Report’ is a written account of any emergency evacuation, emergency alarm trigger, injury, or accident that occurs in a Department/Centre. Incident Reports must contain a description of the event, a preliminary investigation into the cause, the prima-facie cause, and recommendations to prevent such incidents in the future.

‘Emergency Response Plan’ a clear and sequential plan that prescribes the actions and actors during an emergency. The plan is drafted by each Department Safety Champion in consultation with OLSEH.

‘Emergency Response Team’ is a team drafted by the Department Safety Champion and tasked with supervising an emergency in that Department/Centre.

The IISc Safety Committee will consist of faculty, staff, and other personnel as per the relevant norms. The primary role of this committee is to:

1. Review the IISc’s Safety Policy from time to time and suggest modifications if any are required.
2. Oversee the activities of OLSEH with respect to the effective implementation of safety policies and advise them from time to time about relevant matters.

The Institute has established the Office of Laboratory Safety and Environmental Health (OLSEH) to be the primary body responsible for the effective implementation of workplace, environmental, and laboratory safety across the Institute. OLSEH shall report to the Institute Safety Committee. OLSEH will comprise EHS Officers and Senior Personnel. OLSEH will:

1. Conduct periodic risk assessment of all activities, equipment, buildings, policies, procedures, training, and manuals across the institute. These include but are not limited to, research activities; department buildings; and student housing; contractor and vendor regulations; and waste and effluent treatment.
2. Take suo motu notice of any safety issue and investigate.
3. Bring to the notice of the Safety Committee, in the form of a report, any hazards observed during assessments or investigations along with recommendations about how to reduce, eliminate and contain said hazards.
4. Provide recommendations on safety policies and actions to the Safety Committee. The recommendations can include, but are not limited to, such matters as rules for personal protective gear, standard operation procedures, waste disposal, storage, emergency response, and incident reporting. In extreme cases of non-compliance (as outlined in this Policy), OLSEH can recommend the closure of laboratories/facilities. OLSEH can recommend the scrapping of faulty or obsolete equipment at the request of the PI.
5. Conduct scheduled and spot audits to ensure that the rules of the Safety Policy prescribed by the Safety Committee are being followed in both letter and spirit across the Institute. To conduct these audits, OLSEH has a right to demand complete and unfettered access to all spaces across the Institute.
6. Inform the Safety Committee of any breach of any prescribed Safety Policy or Safety Rules by any User on the Institute’s campuses.
7. Periodically review the Institute’s Safety Policy and submit any proposed changes to the Safety Committee for approval. Once approved, OLSEH will inform all stakeholders of the changes made to the policy. This must be done within a reasonable amount of time.
8. Implement the directions of the IISc Safety Committee. This may include matters related to technical advice, the implementation of policies, the conducting of investigations, the procurement of information, and follow-up on action items.
9. Ensure that the Institute has all the required statutory approvals it needs from the state and central governments and other regulatory agencies.
10. Assist the PI in obtaining required equipment- or facility-specific statutory approvals from the state and central governments and other regulatory agencies.
11. Serve as the Institute’s primary point of contact with all regulatory agencies and governmental departments.
12. Facilitate any external safety audits mandated by regulatory agencies or appointed by the Safety Committee from time to time.
13. Solicit the Safety Committee for funds to improve the safety infrastructure in the institute.
14. Serve as the primary source of contact for Department Safety Champions (on behalf of Safety Committee).
15. Compile the biannual self-audit reports from Safety Champions of individual departments.
16. Maintain a list of Department Safety Champions, along with their emergency contacts.
17. Maintain a record of all safety incident reports generated by the Department Safety Champions.
18. Serve notices to Users/PIs in case of violations of this Policy.
19. Coordinate with campus security, the Health Centre, and the Centre for Campus Management & Development (CCMD) to provide the support necessary for ensuring safety within the Institute’s campuses.

Each department or centre shall have a designated Safety Champion, who must be an Employee of the Institute and part of the cadre of faculty and scientific staff with sufficient authority. The Safety Champion will be appointed by the department Chair and OLSEH will be informed of the appointment. The Safety Champion will:

1. Be the primary point of contact at a Department/Centre for the Safety Committee and OLSEH.
2. Be responsible for identifying and informing OLSEH about any unrecognized hazards in the department.
3. Maintain a list of Principal Investigators for all laboratories, along with their emergency contacts.
4. Maintain records of the biannual safety-audits submitted by each Principal Investigator and compile these biannual self-audits into a report to be submitted to the OLSEH every six months.
5. Conduct investigation into any safety complaint from users and, if necessary, escalate the issue to the IISc Safety Committee and OLSEH.
6. Generate and maintain records of Safety Incident Reports. A copy of these must be sent to OLSEH and shared with the department’s members.
7. Establish an Emergency Response Plan for the department as per the norms set out by the Safety Committee. This plan may include details about fire prevention, fire alarms, emergency evacuation, and assembly points.
8. Educate the department community about the Emergency Plan in a mandatory safety session and through a surprise emergency drill, to be organized at least once every year.
9. Establish an emergency response team responsible for overseeing any emergency response. A subset of the ERT must be on call 24x7 to respond to an emergency. The ERT must ensure complete evacuation, offer technical advice to first responders, inform OLSEH, inform the Security Officer, call the Emergency vehicle(s), and manage the assembly points. The ERT is expected to understand the safety hazards present in the Department. The ERT is also the only body with the authority to declare an "all-clear".

All laboratories must have a supervising ‘Principal Investigator’ or PI. Typically, this will be a faculty member, scientific officer, or senior project staff member. The PI is entrusted with the safety and well-being of all Users and Contractors in their laboratory. The PI will:

1. Be responsible for implementing the safety policies prescribed by OLSEH in their laboratory. Any sought exceptions must be approved by OLSEH.
2. Be responsible for arranging funds to implement the safety policies prescribed by OLSEH. This includes, but is not limited to, funds for personal protective equipment, safety detectors, storage cabinets, fume hoods, gas cabinets, signage, first aid boxes, and fire exits.
3. Appoint a laboratory safety monitor. The monitor could be a senior research student, project staff member or a scientific/technical staff member.
4. Ensure the prominent display of the laboratory plan that lists hazards and entry/exits using the format specified by OLSEH.
5. Develop well-documented safety protocols for non-standard equipment/facilities and ensure all users are trained in these protocols.
6. Respond to any request for safety infrastructure or complaints made by the Users in their laboratory.
7. Provide a structure to appropriately train Users of their laboratory in order to manage possible laboratory hazards. The structure must be comprehensive and designed with a ‘reasonable’ User in mind.
8. Monitor the entry of personnel into their labs so that only people with appropriate safety training are exposed to lab hazards. Conversely, people who cannot have such training must be excluded from labs.
9. Conduct a biannual safety audit of their laboratory. The self-audit should be comprehensive and prepared in the format prescribed by OLSEH.
10. Submit the following statement to the Registrar for all new projects:

“The risk assessment for these planned activities has been done. Infrastructure to conduct the activity safely either exists in the lab or is built into the funding structure of the current proposal.”

All Users will:

1. Be personally responsible for their own safety.
2. Follow the Safety Rules prescribed by the Safety Committee and/or PI.
3. Undergo training in laboratory protocols and emergency responses
4. Learn about and understand the potential hazards present in their laboratories and act in a way to minimize the risk posed by those hazards.
5. Not indulge in any activity that, in their own assessment, can pose a threat either to themselves or to others in the Institute premises. In this, they are allowed to override directions given by the PI.
6. Inform the Department Safety Champion of any concern to violate safety norms. These reports will be kept confidential. In extreme cases, information may need to be provided to the OLSEH or Safety Committee.
7. Strictly adhere to the safety practices and standard operating procedures established for the laboratories they work in. All Users are expected to be trained and tested in these practices and procedures before starting work in the laboratory to which they are assigned, and must undergo retraining and testing at regular intervals. Serious violations might lead to the exclusion of the Users from the laboratory for a specified period or indefinitely.

Any violation of this Safety Policy or Safety Rules will be handled as follows:

1. For a first-time violation, OLSEH will send a white notice to the responsible Principal Investigator, with a time frame for remedial action based on the severity of the violation.
2. If the violation is not remedied within the timeframe, OLSEH will send a yellow notice to the responsible Principal Investigator with an insistence on immediate action.
3. In case of non-compliance, even after the issuing of a yellow notice, OLSEH will send a red notice to the offending Principal Investigator and order a temporary closure of the laboratory/ facility until the violation is remedied.
4. In cases of severe violations requiring immediate remedial action, the OLSEH office may directly issue a yellow or red notice.
5. In the event of damage to property or other loss caused to the Institute due to the violation of the Safety Policy or Safety Rules, the User/s shall fully indemnify the Institute and hold the Institute harmless against all loss, injury and damage. In addition, the Institute reserves the right to claim damages/compensation for any loss caused by the actions/ omissions of the User in relation to the Institute’s Safety Policy or Safety Rules.

The lack of attention to sound safety practices can lead to the loss of property, the compromising of years of painstaking research, serious injury, and, in extreme cases, the loss of life. The Institute, therefore, considers it the duty of all individuals to adhere to this Safety Policy and the attendant Safety Rules published on the OLSEH website.

All faculty, staff, and registered students of the Institute are expected to read and understand this Safety Policy and agree to work towards adopting a strong culture of safety.

Visitors, short-term and long-term users (such as foreign exchange students), visiting faculty, collaborators, interns, employees of companies and individuals who temporarily access facilities at the Institute under any arrangement need to acknowledge the Institute’s safety policy in the manner given below.