Before the founding of the department, the matters of safety, industrial sanitation and firefighting equipment were taught by the employees of the department “Railway Cars and Railway Car Maintenance”: associate professor A.A. Brok, teachers V.A. Pytlyakov, G.F. Gusev, S.I. Kapustina.

On May 3, 1965, the department of Health Safety and Fire-fighting Techniques in the Railway Transport was formed, and on December 31, 1965 it was reorganized into the department of Labor Protection.

From May 1965 to February 1989, the assistant professor V.F. Kharlamov was the head of the department. On May 30, 1990, the department was transformed into the department of Health Safety. Starting from April 26, 1996, the department has been called "Health Safety and Ecology". From February 1989 to December 2001, O.I. Pozdnyakov was in charge of the Health Safety and Ecology department. From December 2001 to September 2002, Associate Professor V.A. Kurilo, and from September 2002 to September 2004 it was led by a Doctor of biological sciences, Professor N.I. Andreev. From September 2004 till the present time, Yu.N. Khmelnitsky, candidate of technical sciences, associate professor, corresponding member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts is the head of the department of Health, Safety and Ecology.

The department is constantly conducting state budget research work "Research on dangerous and harmful work factors at the railway transport enterprises and the development of methods and means of protection for workers from their effects."

The department organizes the research work of students, annually holds scientific and technical student conferences with the work of the sections "Health Safety" and "Ecology", and participates in contractual rationalization and inventive activity.

The department conducts the following types of initiative research:

1. in the field of health safety: the study of the electromagnetic safety of land mobile radio communications devices;
2. in the field of environmental protection: a study of the impact of electric current collection devices on the environment; improving the quality of operation of diesel locomotives in order to reduce their negative impact on the environment;
3. in the field of bioecology: the study of the biodiversity of mollusks in Western Siberia.

The research work in the field of environmental protection and environmental safety, carried out by the department, is reflected in the annual reports of the Omsk Regional Government "On the State of Environment and Environmental Protection of the Omsk Region".

Leading professor of the department, doctor of biological sciences N.I. Andreev is the author of 140 scientific papers in the field of bioecology, including four monographs; he is the owner of a grant from the Katherine and John McArthur Foundation and two grants from the George Soros Foundation for environmental research. He maintains international scientific relations with foreign researchers - malacologists from Germany, Ukraine, and a number of countries in Western Europe.

The department provides training and knowledge assessment of labor protection requirements, as well as pre-certification training in industrial safety for managers and specialists of Russian Railways.

Employees of the department conduct forensic and environmental examinations, participate in the work of the Coordination Council under the mayor of Omsk on ecology and environmental protection.

From 2013 to 2016, the staff of the Health Safety and Ecology department together with the department of Management, Marketing and Commerce participated in the Tempus RECOAUD international educational project under the Environmental Management in Russian Companies program — advanced training courses for introducing and integrating environmental audit programs into corporate control".

OSTU partners in the project were the Technical University of Dresden (Germany) - the project coordinator, universities in Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Russia: Samara State Transport University, Ural State Transport University and Tyumen Oil and Gas University. The project was funded by EACEA, the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency.

In the process of implementing the TEMPUS RECOAUD project at OSTU and other Russian partner universities, the following activities have been completed:

1. an analysis of the teaching of environmental disciplines in the work programs of higher professional and additional education;
2. all the teachers of Russian universities that participated in the project, including 3 teachers of the department of Health Safety and Ecology, have improved their English skills and received appropriate certificates (the working language of the project was English);
3. 16 teachers of Russian universities, including 2 teachers of the Health Safety and Ecology department, completed internships with European colleagues at the universities of Czestochow (Poland) and Samara (Samara State Transport University) on environmental management and audit (September - October 2015);
4. the teachers of the Health Safety and Ecology department, as well as Management, Marketing and Commerce department – developed and implemented an advanced training program in the amount of 120 hours on the topic of environmental management and audit for specialists of the West Siberian Railway, as well as students (November-December 2015);
5. teachers of the department selected 10 students based on the results of the motivational interviews and prepared them for participation in a two-week competition-forum on the topic of environmental management in Samara in February 2016;
6. students of OSTU became winners of the student environmental forum in the nomination "Environmental projects";
7. new technologies were introduced into the process of continuous environmental education. Russian teachers took into account European experience and developed cases for interactive classes in various sections (modules) of the additional education program in environmental management and auditing, as well as the Ecology discipline, with students and specialists of companies;
8. knowledge exchange and cooperation between organizations and companies participating in the project was intensified;
9. OSTU students that have participated in the project – prepared 4 reports on the Health Safety section of the III All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference with international participation “STUDENT: SCIENCE, PROFESSION, LIFE” (OSTU, April 2016);
10. computer equipment for the department and the university was acquired;
11. based on the project materials, the teachers of the Health Safety and Ecology department published 5 scientific papers, including a collective monograph;
12. an electronic textbook on the course of environmental management and auditing (in English) was published in collaboration with European and Russian teachers (December 2016).

The results of monitoring the quality of the project in OSTU and Russian partner universities with the participation of European teachers and EACEA representatives confirmed the successful results of advanced training courses as a stage of lifelong education. The purpose of such courses in TEMPUS RECOAUD project is not only a one-time training of a group of people in environmental management, but is also to promote the dissemination of environmental culture in Russia as a whole and the formation of motivation for environmental-oriented behavior among practitioners and students — future leaders.

The department carries out the educational process in all institutes and at all faculties of the university, conducts academic classes in the following disciplines:

1. "Health and Safety";
2. "Practical safety measures";
3. "Ecology";
4. "Electrical safety".

The teaching staff of the department widely uses the latest teaching methods, including modern multimedia tools and Internet technologies for working with students, using the updated regulatory and technical database of documents. The classes reflect the latest domestic and foreign achievements in the area of labor and environmental protection, provide factual and statistical material on the state of labor conditions and labor protection at the enterprises of the industry, and current environmental problems.

Training sessions are held in specialized laboratories of the department:

• “Working Conditions”;
• "Electrical Safety."

In recent years, the department carried out modernization of the laboratory facilities and is currently continuing to outfit the laboratories with the latest equipment.