Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN)

The Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) is a multi-disciplinary program that brings together clinicians and engineers in academia, industry and government to review data on patient injuries, personal interviews, and findings from crash site and vehicle wreckage.

The CIREN Mission

The mission of the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) is to improve the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of motor vehicle crash injuries to reduce deaths, disabilities, and human and economic costs. CIREN centers perform medical and engineering research on serious crash injuries that contributes to the efforts of NHTSA and the automotive industry to improve safety. CIREN research helps advance the development, testing, and evaluation of new technologies for the prevention of injuries. CIREN research is also focused on new techniques for more effective emergency medical transport and treatment of crash injured people.

The goal of CIREN research is to identify opportunities for improvement in the prevention and treatment of crash injuries. This is accomplished through the coordinated efforts of medical researchers, working with engineers at NHTSA, the automobile industry and academia to better understand the complex mechanisms of crash impact injuries.

This synergistic scientific approach enables engineers to learn how to improve vehicle designs, and medical practitioners to learn better means of treating crash survivors. CIREN research provides the safety community with a “microscope” for the study of crash injuries in the real world. This is achieved by the collection and computerization of the extremely detailed crash and medical data on serious injuries and their consequences.

The CIREN program strengthens America's national, state and local highway safety infrastructure by providing a more realistic understanding of serious crash injuries. CIREN provides valuable information about both what is needed and what actually works with the study of serious real-world crash injuries.

CIREN research is also helping to advance the development of new technologies for improving crash safety. A fundamental means of achieving CIREN goals is achieved through research, education, and professional training. Numerous CIREN research findings have been published in scientific journals, and presented at international, national, state and local conferences.

A unique feature of the CIREN program is its outreach efforts to educate and train a growing number of engineers and medical practitioners including physicians, nurses, and first responders such as paramedics, fire, rescue, and police. The result is a more informed and educated human infrastructure of safety and emergency medical care workers building a safer America.