KARSIP is an international initiative to address the lack of a structural local knowledge base in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The program intends to support countries in developing a sustainable knowledge- and research infrastructure. As such it will give LMICs a sound basis for road safety policy and provide a sustainable local road safety memory.
The acronym KARSIP stands for Knowledge And Research for Road Safety in LMICs: an Investment Program.
KARSIP is currently in its initial stage. The initiators, who share many decades of road safety experience, have been advocating such a program in various prestigious international forums: the PIARC World Road Congress in Prague, 2023, the 15th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion in Delhi, 2024, and the 4th Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Marrakech, 2025. The concept is also described in a paper published in the international journal Traffic Safety Research.
These promotional efforts have brought together a broad group of international experts who support the development of KARSIP. In a general meeting in September 2025, these experts and other KARSIP friends committed to a strategy and approach for the next steps, focusing on the development and funding of pilot projects to demonstrate the benefits of widespread implementation. The first pilot project will soon be launched in Sri Lanka, where the University of Moratuwa will establish a road safety research institute.