ELSE Project Presentation
The ELSE project aims to develop a new research-based approach for education in the domain of safety leadership.
Major accidents in the last few decades have questioned the reliability and performance of industrial safety, and evidenced the foremost role played by human and organizational issues. In this context, the concept of “safety leadership” has emerged. It relates to how, through the interactions with their socio-technical environment, leaders influence the way individuals and groups understand and adhere to organizational safety goals and to the means to achieve them.
In 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference adopted a resolution calling for the development of specific training on safety leadership. The European Union is involved in this call, especially through its Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation (INSC). The ELSE project was initiated in this context.
ELSE has three objectives:
- To develop a certified university diploma in the field of safety leadership based on up-to-date scientific knowledge and best practices;
- To experiment the training curriculum of this diploma with a group of young professionals from INSC and European countries (September 2022 – June 2023);
- To establish the basis for a sustainable development of leadership for safety education:
- by making leadership for safety education available to students through a network of “implementing European Universities”, as a component of a Master’s degree;
- by designing a MOOC for a worldwide reach;
- by creating an international and multidisciplinary network of academics and experts in the domain of leadership for safety. The first step towards the creation of this network involved the organization of an international workshop.