High-Risk Fieldwork

Recent examples of high-risk fieldwork that students have undertaken  is included below. If you are planning on doing something that falls into any of these categories, you must speak to your module supervisor first.

• Working at height, e.g. on the roof of tall buildings, next to cliffs, etc.

• Lone or isolated working, e.g. working alone in the countryside, working alone late at night, etc.

• Participating in sports, e.g. abseiling, motocross, bungee jumping, sky diving, etc.

• Working with animals or insects, e.g. at a zoo, a horse stable, at a bee farm, etc.

• Working in or on bodies of water

• Visiting laboratories or other areas where chemical, biological or radioactive agents are used

• Meeting people in non-public places, such as private residences, offices in workplaces, etc. may require a high-risk risk assessment.

• Working after 9pm at night may require a high-risk risk assessment.

• Entering abandoned or derelict buildings.

• Meeting and interviewing people engaged in crime or other high-risk activities; sex workers, drug users, members or meetings arranged by members of extremist or radical organisations, etc.

Students should be prepared to change their plans in order to accommodate any agreed controls put in place by the high-risk fieldwork risk assessment. Again, the purpose of these risk assessments is not to limit what students can or cannot do, they are to make sure that students can carry out their fieldwork as safely as possible. 

There is also a High-Risk Fieldwork checker tool on the Blackboard site that you can use to check if your fieldwork is high or low risk.