The Delft 1974 and 2019 European Loss Prevention Symposia: Highlights and an impression of process safety evolutionary changes from the 1st to the 16th LPS.

• The EFCE 16th Loss Prevention Symposium was held in June 2019 in Delft, NL. • The first symposium of this series was in 1974 at the same location. • A comparison was made what knowledge has been gained in those 45 years. • An overview is given of the many interesting presentations at the current event. • The evolution toward Industry 4.0 presents new challenges to process safety. The first European Loss Prevention Symposium under the auspices of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE) took place in 1974 in the then new Aula of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. After the triennial symposium over a period of 45 years having been organized in several European cities, it returned in 2019 to the Delft Aula. Authors of this paper are members of EFCE Loss Prevention Working Party organizing the LP Symposia and after nearly half century, it is therefore worthwhile to look back and also to look forward, following the evolution of process safety. This paper presents an impression of the changes in process safety, risk management approaches, and methods over that 45-year period, while at the same time the last symposium contributions are briefly reviewed and a few highlights, called breakthroughs, are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]