This year marks the 25th edition of Safetronic, proving that the topic of safety is best addressed within a community of experts. Here, those who consistently set the course for greater road safety have been able to – and continue to – have detailed discussions. A brief look back at a success story.
September 18, 2026
© Fraunhofer IKS
Most people don’t even know that safety experts like us exist. They probably don’t even stop to think that many of us have dedicated our professional lives to protecting people. But why should they? They probably don’t even realize that our work is necessary at all. And ultimately, this is the best compliment for our work – it means we’ve done everything right. In that sense, we’re victims of our own success. Nevertheless, our work is more than just an invaluable service to society – it is the foundation of every company in safety-related industries. While companies can’t market safety as a selling point, without safety they wouldn’t sell anything at all.
Why is that? Safety is defined as the absence of unacceptable risks. But “absence” is something the human brain cannot comprehend. We cannot imagine true nothingness, picture complete emptiness, or mentally grasp the absence of something. Yet that is precisely the goal of safety: people should not have to worry about risks or fear that their lives might be threatened by the technical systems around them, such as cars.
Even though our goal is to remain unnoticed by the public, it is all the more valuable to bring safety experts together – the insiders who truly understand what the “absence of unacceptable risks” means and why it is so crucial. The greatest breakthroughs in safety result from professional discourse that go beyond corporate boundaries
It is precisely for this reason that, 25 years ago, Safetronic not only established itself as a leading safety conference but also marked the birth of a vibrant community in our field. With a history now spanning a quarter-century, Safetronic has evolved into the leading conference for the holistic safety of road vehicles. A look back at this history offers a unique insight into the evolution of our discipline – the people who have shaped it, the challenges that have defined our work, and how broader changes in technology, markets, and society are reflected in our activities. That’s reason enough to take a closer look at 25 years of Safetronic.
When Safetronic began in 2001, safety was still heavily influenced by development processes, the management of technical failures, and implementation faults. While Safetronic initially launched with a focus on the automotive industry, it was later expanded to include the rail sector. However, with the first ISO 26262 standard in 2011, road vehicle safety received its own normative framework. This marked a decisive turning point for Safetronic. My involvement with the conference began that same year, and by 2012 we had refocused it entirely on the automotive sector.
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Yet, ISO 26262 was only the beginning. With the introduction of Safety of the Intended Functionality (SOTIF), the focus shifted increasingly from technical faults to safe behavior in open, only partially predictable environments. Functional safety was no longer sufficient for modern driver assistance and automated driving systems. And artificial intelligence (AI) further accelerated this transformation radically: Behavior is no longer fully specified but is, in some cases, simply anchored in data and model weights. As a result, traditional fault models and integrity-driven development alone are no longer sufficient. We must understand risks in real-world scenarios, manage uncertainty, and convincingly verify why a learning system acts safely enough.
But Safetronic had to prove itself beyond this technical transformation. During the pandemic, we initially kept the community together virtually. When Hanser-Verlag closed its event business in 2021, the conference suddenly faced its sudden, unexpected end. Although conference organization is not part of our core business, we – as the Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS – took on responsibility for the community. We initially continued Safetronic in a hybrid format, expanded its focus to “Holistic safety for road vehicles,” and put it back on a track for growth. In 2023, it achieved a record number of attendees; since 2025, it has once again been held entirely in person; and this year, we are celebrating 25 years of Safetronic.
For me, this is precisely what makes 25 years of Safetronic so significant. The conference was never just a place where new standards were explained. It has always also served as a mirror reflecting what we, as a community, are currently struggling with: concepts, verification methods, the limitations of existing approaches, and new paradigms. From functional safety to SOTIF to safety of AI, from individual components to networked systems, from a single component failure to the safe behavior of a learning system, from a reliable development process to continuous change: Safetronic does more than just accompany this evolution. The conference provides the place where we shape it together.
