Research and analysis

OPSS areas of research interest

Published 27 March 2026

1. Foreword from the Chief Analytical Officer 

I am delighted to introduce the Office for Product Safety and Standards’ first Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) document. As Chief Analytical Officer, I see collaboration with the research community as vital to ensuring that the UK’s product safety system is informed by the strongest possible evidence. This document sets out the key areas where we believe research can make a meaningful contribution to our work. I hope it provides a useful starting point for identifying opportunities to support us, whether through existing research, new ideas, or opening up conversations that help grow our evidence base and future partnerships. If you are currently working on research relevant to our interests, or planning future studies that may align with them, we would be very pleased to hear from you.

Thank you for taking the time to explore our ARIs and for being part of the journey to strengthen product safety in the UK.

Rebekah Eden, Chief Analytical Officer.

2. Introduction

OPSS is the UK’s national product regulator, part of the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). Our primary purpose is to protect people and places from product-related harm, ensuring consumers and businesses can buy and sell products with confidence. Delivering these protections in a fair and transparent way helps maintain consumer confidence in markets, facilitates trade and investment, and helps to support innovation and sustainable economic growth. We use science, evidence, and intelligence to shape our interventions so they are proportionate, guided by the risk of harm, and seek to minimise complexity and cost for businesses and consumers.

OPSS’s objectives are focused on developing policy and enforcing product regulations which protect consumers, particularly those most vulnerable, whilst also enabling responsible businesses to thrive. This supports the government’s growth mission and DBT’s focus on delivering economic growth.  

The UK has a global reputation for an effective and proportionate regulatory environment that delivers protection for consumers, underpins the supply of trusted products, and protects responsible businesses. As the UK’s product regulator, we aim to ensure that product regulation is effective, clear, and proportionate.

We support the work of DBT’s ministers to deliver effective policy and regulation, and use intelligence, science and evidence to help guide changes where appropriate. We work across government, with local authorities, public sector organisations, businesses, and business and consumer bodies to fulfil our responsibilities which are outlined further here; OPSS Delivery Report 2024-2025 - GOV.UK

To that end, evidence is an integral part of developing the strategies behind the Office’s activities and decision making. The development of our evidence bases are already supported by our Registers of Specialists and our internal Strategic Research Programme, details of which and recent publications from which can be found here: Construction Products Register of Specialists - OPSS and Product safety research - GOV.UK.

To further strengthen our network of contributors and supporters of our work, we have developed our own Areas of Research Interest highlighting the OPSS’s priority evidence areas and related questions to guide potential academics to the cutting- edge questions that policy makers and regulators are currently asking with regards to product safety.

3. Links to the Department for Business and Trade ARIs

As the UK’s national product regulator, OPSS are responsible for the regulation of most consumer goods ^{[footnote 1]} and are the national regulator for construction products. The regulations we enforce ensure that everyday products such as toys, electricals and cosmetics are safe for use; they ensure accurate weighing and measuring so that consumers get what they pay for; they ensure construction products perform as they should in the built environment; and they ensure products such as timber and electricals are sourced or disposed of in the right way to avoid harm to the environment.

We support DBT ministers in the development and implementation of product safety, metrology and hallmarking policy, and MHCLG Ministers on associated responsibilities relating to construction products. We enforce product regulations for six different government departments, sometimes acting as the sole enforcement authority and in other areas working with local authorities to coordinate national and local enforcement activities.

Due to OPSS’s unique position of being both a regulator and policy holder our evidence requirements are broad; therefore, we have developed our own Areas of Research Interest which ultimately support our aims and those of the government departments we support.

For more information on our department’s overall evidence priorities please see The Department for Business and Trades Areas of Research interest here: DBT Areas of Research Interest

4. Purpose of Areas of Research Interest

This document outlines the questions the Office for Product Safety and Standards currently requires answers to, to further develop existing evidence bases that support our policy and regulatory activity.

We would like to use this document to encourage academics, researchers and other similar organisations to share and contribute any relevant research and information to both build upon existing knowledge but to also grow connections with the academic community and stimulate future collaborations.

The questions represent knowledge that is not currently being gathered through our existing research programme, or we feel requires external research to support. Evidence requirements will evolve over time, resulting in new ARIs or increased commissioning for external work through our research programme.

We welcome submissions and enquiries on any of the topics and questions listed within this document.

For further context and examples for what OPSS uses its research for please see our Science and Evidence review published January 2024; Science and Analysis in OPSS

5. Engaging with the Areas of Research Interest

We welcome your engagement with the ARI as a researcher in the following ways: 

• If you have evidence that completely or partly answers one of our questions, or relates to OPSS’s areas of work more broadly, we invite you to share that. 

• If you are currently, or plan to be carrying out research relating to one of our questions, we’d like to hear about it. 

• If you are aware of relevant research being conducted elsewhere, please let us know. 

• If you are submitting a funding or grant application that aligns with one of our questions, we hope referencing DBT OPSS’s ARI will help to strengthen your case for the possible public impact of the research. 

• If you would like to express your interest in engaging with OPSS on shared research interests, please sign up using the first page of the form linked at the end of this document.

Please note that the ARIs are not linked to any research funding. The ARIs is not an offer to collaborate with researchers on projects, and we cannot respond to speculative approaches for research funding. Externally commissioned research projects are competitively tendered on Contracts finder and the Research Marketplace or through our Research Collaboration Network (you can find out more about these at the end of the document).  We recognise that evidence or calls for evidence in some areas may have taken place in the past, this process will also serve the purpose of ensuring there are no perceived gaps or ensuring that evidence is kept up-to-date.

Depending on the nature of your ongoing or planned research, relevant teams might be able to support it by providing insights and letters of support for grant applications. To discuss these types of support, please get in touch using the form at the end of this document.  

A list of all government departments areas of research interest publications can be found on gov.uk on the Areas of Research Interest pages. Areas of research interest from all government departments are indexed and searchable via the ARI database. 

6. Our Areas of Research Interest

7. Sector Understanding

Background

The regulation and legislation the Office for Product Safety and Standards is responsible for is broad, covering several consumer and construction product types. This theme therefore asks questions that contribute to our understanding of the sectors and systems these products sit within. Specifically trying to understand;

• how can future political, economical, social, technical, scientific, legislative and environmental changes could impact OPSS’s sectors and products; including the result of cross government policies and priority areas such as net zero, circular economies and regulatory innovation.

• the size and nature of the markets for these products;

• information on the number and demographics of businesses operating within a sector or consumer base;

• how sectors are developing over time or new and emerging sectors/products

Questions

1. How do different regulators align priorities, share data, learn from each other when their regulatory remits overlap or operate in similar fields?

2. How do other countries’ National Quality Infrastructure operate with respect to systems integration across National Quality Infrastructure institutes?

3. What best practice models exist globally for product regulation and how applicable/adoptable could they be in the UK given the UK’s current National Quality setup?

4. How can we harness potential benefits of technology advances across OPSS sectors while ensuring consumer safety?

5. What battery technologies are likely to come to market in the next two to five years for use in personal light electric vehicles (PLEVs) and in what way will these affect the performance of PLEVs including their safety performance?

6. What methodologies would support collecting accurate data to support an incident database of non-physical and physical hazards associated with network devices in “smart homes” (including assisted living “smart homes”)?

8. Product Understanding

Background

Product Understanding looks at developing the Office’s evidence bases around specific products rather than for sectors and markets they sit in. The questions cover risk assessment of products and the various factors that go into measuring this, methods for identification, and measurement techniques for the effectiveness of consequent controls. They may also cover;

• The number and nature of injuries involving a particular product (or information on other hazard types, e.g. environmental hazards, for products we regulate on behalf of OGDs);

• The number of products sold and in homes;

• Methods to quantify these;

• Identifying risks around new products coming onto the market;

• Scientific and technical understanding as it relates to a specific product.

Questions

1. Which products are currently associated with consumer harm across the UK, and to what extent can this harm be quantified? Are there identifiable trends or contributing factors that influence whether a product is likely to cause harm?

2. How can we measure the level of compliance with safety standards for consumer products sold in the UK?

3. What existing research can inform understanding of psychological or other harms caused by non-compliant connected products?

4. How can we gather insights into injuries that are consumer and construction product related that the general public experience, but don’t require medical assistance?

5. How feasible is it to systematically assess and quantify diverse types of product-related harm spanning impacts on animals, property, human health, and ecological systems, within a single, unified risk assessment framework?

6. How can we conduct child-specific chemical risk assessments to ensure children are sufficiently protected from chemical health hazards in consumer products?

7. How can consumer detriment from receiving reduced quantities of products without consumers’ awareness, be meaningfully compared to detriment from unsafe products, including both physical and non-physical harms, to inform regulatory priorities and strengthen the evidence base for intervention?

8. What horizon scanning methods are best suited to understanding regulatory challenges regarding consumer products and legal metrology technology that will come to market in the next five years, and why are these methods better than others?

9. What product innovations are anticipated to be most significant in the near future, and what risks might those innovative products pose, based on their manufacture and foreseeable use?

10. What pre-and post-market monitoring methods can be used to identify, quantify and investigate emerging product safety issues in the UK consumer market from products introduced into UK markets from domestic and overseas sources?

11. How can we further increase confidence in the use of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) and reduce reliance on animal studies in chemical safety testing of consumer products?

12. How can we test the effectiveness of regulations on the safety of furniture and furnishings?

9. Business Compliance

Background

This topic covers a range of cross-cutting evidence questions relating to businesses, particularly around how OPSS can engage with businesses to increase their compliance with regulations.  It covers areas such as:

• The characteristics of businesses associated with unsafe products;

• How OPSS can best engage with different types of business;

• The impacts of product regulation on businesses.

• Effectiveness of interventions and mechanisms in influencing businesses to take action to ensure the placement of safe products on UK markets

Questions

1. What intervention methods such as legislation, guidance and enforcement activities are most effective at supporting businesses to be compliant with OPSS relevant regulation?

2. What intervention methods are effective at changing the compliance with product safety regulation of business outside of the UK?

3. How impactful are non-regulatory approaches such as events, business engagement and communication strategies to OPSS’s reputation, business awareness and compliance?

4. How do businesses in Northern Ireland operate differently (to those in Great Britain) regarding their compliance with product regulations implemented by the EU and the UK?

5. How can we better estimate the administrative burden that product regulations place on businesses and enforcement bodies?

6. What are the attributes displayed by businesses linked to the supply of non-compliant products in the UK, and can these be used to focus regulatory intervention?

7. Globally, what are regulators doing to support innovation and reduce regulatory burden for industry, how is success of any initiatives measured, and what would be the likely level of success when similar initiatives are applied to product safety and legal metrology in the UK?

10. Supply Chains

Background

Supply Chains are key in understanding how risk manifests itself in products. OPSS is interested in the actors within supply chains, but also the supply chains of different products so we can understand where risk enters the supply chains and how we can best intervene to prevent it. This topic broadly seeks evidence that covers;

• Evidence needs relating to online marketplaces or how products are imported into the UK

• Understanding risks at different parts of supply chains, and where OPSS can most effectively intervene

• Information on features of supply chains that are connected to the availability of unsafe products in our markets

Questions

1. How can we understand and quantify how supply chain operations are changing, and categorise the scale and natures of the challenges this might pose around assuring product safety?

2. What impact do we anticipate on product manufacturing from geopolitical disruption (for example around availability of materials or overseas manufacturing bases)?

3. What evidence shows that trending technologies such as AI‑driven discovery and influencer marketing, are reshaping consumer behaviour and market demand across sector areas of interest?

4. What knock‑on effects from trending technologies are emerging for supply chains; and how should UK product‑safety regulation and its enforcement adapt in response?

5. How can we quantitatively estimate the benefits of equal regulatory requirements on both bricks and mortar shops and online marketplaces selling consumer goods?

11. Consumer Behaviour

Background

This topic explores questions relating to consumers and how OPSS engages with them. We are particularly interested in understanding how consumers make purchasing decisions and what methods are most useful to educate and inform different demographics of consumer with respect to product safety information, this topic may also include areas such as;

• Increased understanding in who our consumers are, and which groups of consumers are most vulnerable;

• What factors, including demographic factors, influence consumer behaviours and purchasing decisions. How can OPSS best reach and educate consumers?

Questions

1. How do consumer and construction products pose risk to vulnerable consumers and what methods can be employed to reduce the effects and exposure to unsafe products?

2. How can OPSS understand the extent and range of consumer decisions?

3. How can OPSS effectively influence consumer decisions and behaviours? a) How can OPSS motivate consumer action in a recall? Or in purchasing safe products? Reporting products following a safety issue?

4. How are current UK economic and market conditions affecting the behaviour of suppliers and consumers? How does this effect vulnerability and impact vulnerable consumers?

5. What approaches can be taken to measuring public tolerance of risks in relation to emerging harms from construction products?

12. How to get in touch

Submissions of evidence

If you have information or research that relates to particular questions please submit your responses here: OPSS.research@businessandtrade.gov.uk

General research contact details and information of interest

However, if you would like to get in contact to discuss your research or anything relating to the content of this document, please see the below contact details and sites of interest.

Our main contact point for discussing or getting involved in any research and analysis, secondments and placements – OPSS.research@businessandtrade.gov.uk

Our full list of research publications – Product safety research - GOV.UK

Overview of Science and Analysis in OPSS - Science and Analysis in OPSS

Please see our main privacy notice for information on how DBT processes personal data, and sets out your rights in respect of that personal data.

13. Footnotes

1. Excluding: food, medicines, and vehicles ↩