Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) chemical engineering student Janina Zambrzycka has been awarded the inaugural Niall Condon Pfizer Process Safety Award. In recognition of Pfizer’s ongoing commitment to process safety and excellent safety performance and its successful partnership with CIT, the two organisations have jointly inaugurated this award for undergraduate students of chemical engineering. The Niall Condon Pfizer Process Safety Award is named after CIT’s very first chemical engineering graduate in 1983, who is now a vice president in Pfizer, with a major interest in process safety. In subsequent years, the award will be presented to a third-year chemical engineering student, achieving among the top three aggregate marks in second year and following an interview. The award will consist of a medal and an internship with Pfizer in the process-safety area. The story behind this development begins in 2012, when Pfizer’s plant in Cork’s Little Island won a national Responsible Care Award for its safety programme, ‘Your Safety Counts’. Following that, the site determined to enhance its concern for process safety and develop the technical competence of staff, to extend beyond the safety specialists. Pfizer approached CIT’s chemical engineering department. Together, a team examined the material that is already part of CIT’s undergraduate chemical engineering degree and considered the implications for pharmaceutical manufacture and the particular needs of the Little Island site. The new module, CHEP8023 Chemical Process Safety, provides single-subject certification at NFQ Level 8 for successful participants. This module was devised to provide a high-level view of safety fundamentals, an orientation to the needs of the pharmachem sector and a sharp focus on local operations. When combined with CHEP8024 Chemical Safety Applications, it leads to a Special Purpose Award: Certificate in Chemical Process Safety. Thirteen staff completed the first offering of the module and the course was extended to Pfizer’s Ringaskiddy, Cork site. A further 28 have now completed the course with 16 more attending the latest offering. Pfizer has benefited from the academic rigour and has again won a Responsible Care Award in 2014 in the area of ‘Leading-Edge Approaches to Achieving Health & Safety Excellence’. Undergraduates in CIT, in turn, have benefited from relevant case studies to refresh their teaching.