The profits we generate fund the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a charity which supports engineering-related research, education and public engagement around everything we do.
Its vision is to be known worldwide as a leading supporter of research, training and education – relevant to the field of engineering – which makes a real difference in improving the safety of the critical infrastructure that is vital to modern society. To support this, it promotes scientific excellence and acts as a catalyst working with others to achieve maximum impact.
Recent major awards by the Foundation include £10 million in funding to the Alan Turing Institute to support research on engineering applications of big data and £9 million to fund research and education in the field of nanotechnology.
- Learn more about the Foundation and its activities
Social investment
We have evolved into the 21st century model for social business – not only funding the Foundation through our profits, but also discharging some of the Foundation’s charitable objectives through our work in assuring the safety of critical infrastructure worldwide.
Our compliance, assurance and performance services directly discharge the first of the Foundation’s charitable objectives – to enhance the safety of life and property – by helping our clients to ensure the quality construction and operation of critical infrastructure.
In the marine industry, our work includes the safety inspection of 8,500 ships each year and the development of Rules for their safe construction, maintenance and disposal. We also help the International Maritime Organization to develop conventions such as the Ballast Water Management Convention and have helped the International Labour Organization to devise the Maritime Labour Convention. We also perform design approvals, surveys and audits to verify compliance with internationally recognised safety standards.
Our work in the energy sector includes verifying the safe design and operation of rigs, platforms, floating offshore installations and refineries. We also inspect boilers and pressure vessels, and other land-based installations for safety-related purposes together with developing Rules for those assets. We deal with safety case preparation for offshore exploration and nuclear power generation.
The work of our management systems business includes medical directive and CE marking activity helping to ensure the safety of a range of consumer products and medical equipment. We devote significant effort and resources to help other standards-setting bodies to devise new or improved standards as well as auditing and providing advice relating to the ISO 14001 environmental and OHSAS 18001 health and safety standards.
We are also at the forefront of furthering the understanding of technology. This directly benefits public knowledge and ensures that when technology is deployed it is sound, suitable and dependable and therefore safe for society in its application. Areas of research include: advanced materials; propulsion and powering; energy production and storage; robotics; marine biotechnology; and autonomous systems. We contribute to public education by making our research publicly available, and our highly qualified experts share their knowledge and experience with academics, students, regulators and professionals through committees, conferences and publications