An article presented at the 8th Global Congress on process safety addressed the need to validate the adequacy of safeguards in order for them to be credited in process hazard analysis (PHA). Validation of safeguards is critical for process safety but its inclusion within PHA would cause a serious distraction from identifying hazard scenarios, which is the key objective of PHA. Furthermore, safeguard validation needs to be performed by qualified personnel with a different skill set than PHA team members using validation methods that are much different than PHA. Consequently, validation of safeguards, and other aspects of process safety that support PHA, should be performed before commencing PHA. The PHA team can then focus on the qualification ofsafeguards for specific hazard scenarios during the PHA. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2013