IAEA's Safety Leadership School Promotes a Strong Safety Culture

Why is leadership vital in nuclear safety? Leadership is needed to initiate appropriate safety actions, motivate staff to ensure safety procedures are followed 24/7, and provide guidance on implementing safety measures.

Learning about the importance of leaders in safety is part of the IAEA International School of Nuclear and Radiological Leadership for Safety, launched in 2016.

Cultivating a safety culture among staff, so that they can understand the importance of safety and the measures required to sustain it, is key in the nuclear industry. Establishing a strong safety culture is one the most fundamental management principles when using nuclear technology. It aims to strengthen the implementation of a systemic approach to safety, that is, the interaction between humans, technology and organizations within the national nuclear infrastructure. The importance of safety culture is one of the key lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.

“The goal of the School is to enable current leaders and future ones in the nuclear field to have a better and more insightful understanding of their role in having a robust safety culture at nuclear facilities around the world,” said Shahid Mallick, Head of the Programme and Strategy Coordination Section of the IAEA’s Office of Safety and Security Coordination. “Communicating policies and plans on the safety-first principle is important when using nuclear technology.”

The School focuses on the application of nuclear and radiological safety leadership concepts to real-life situations. It aims to develop the leadership skills of mid-career professionals and uses normal and emergency scenarios to test leadership and management skills. “The high demand in attending the School from across our Member States since its introduction is a reflection of the requirement for such support,” Mallick said.

Safety: top-down and bottom-up

Participants in the School learn new ways to communicate through a pedagogic progression of learning objectives, starting from ‘goals’, ‘values and attitudes’ and ‘engagement’, and leading to the understanding of more complex, real-life situations illustrated by case studies, presentations, key note addresses and discussions. The syllabus provides them with a fundamental basis and understanding of safety as a top priority. The curriculum is developed by experts from international organizations, nuclear operators and academia, and includes hands-on training based on case studies on nuclear or radiological emergencies.

Karmolporn Pakdee, a dissemination officer at Thailand’s Office of Atoms for Peace who attended the first IAEA International School of Nuclear and Radiological Leadership for Safety hosted by Tokai University, Japan, in February 2020, said: “Nuclear and radiological safety needs everybody’s cooperation. We all need to be committed to it as a team, through planning and systematic approaches that include the proper use of diverse tools and communication — only then can we bring nuclear and radiological safety to the public in every corner of the world.”

Through case studies and leadership games, participants address situations such as an unintended medical exposure, nuclear power plant outages and radioactive material leaks. They are asked to identify gaps and ways to help an organization improve its nuclear safety processes and mechanisms.

One of the areas underlined in The Fukushima Daiichi Accident, a 2015 report by the Director General, was the need for a systemic approach to nuclear safety. Practical exercises conducted at the School test this approach in simulated scenarios inspired by real-life situations, said María Moracho Ramírez, a Senior Safety Officer at the IAEA, adding that “regardless of their position and role in an organization, staff at all levels must demonstrate commitment and leadership for safety.”

Rosbell Bosch Robaina, President of the Ibero-American Forum of Radiological and Nuclear Regulatory Agencies (FORO), said that “the School was a unique experience, as well as my best learning experience. It provided all of us with many tools to effectively address leadership for safety and an international perspective through the sharing of knowledge with peers and proven senior nuclear leadership experts. Being part of a new network group also allows us to share knowledge and experiences.”

The IAEA continues to support Member States in fostering a safety culture and developing leadership skills to ensure the safe management of nuclear facilities. A pilot version of the School was held in France in 2017. The successful methodology was extended to India and Mexico in 2018, followed by courses in Brazil, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey in 2019, and Japan in 2020. The curriculum is normally foreseen to be face-to-face in order to achieve the most effective results; nonetheless, a hybrid version of the School that will include virtual elements is being developed as a complementary online learning approach, in response to Member States’ requests.