ONLINE - IWISC-1: 1st International Workshop on Incremental Safety Culture

Purpose and Character of IWISC-1 

The First International Workshop on Incremental Safety Culture (IWISC-1) marks the formal launch of an international, practice-led initiative focused on how safety, resilience, and performance are actually improved in complex socio-technical systems — incrementally, locally, and often invisibly. 

Rather than positioning itself as a conventional academic conference, IWISC-1 is deliberately designed as a small, invitation-oriented working meeting, grounded in real operational experience and sustained dialogue. The workshop follows a simple principle: long discussions, interrupted by short presentations, rather than the reverse. 

Participation
will be limited to approximately 50 delegates, ensuring depth of engagement and shared reflection. 

Date and Structure 

• Wednesday 24 June 2026 (full day): Workshops, facilitated discussions, and panel-based reflection. Concluded by Copenhagen harbour and canal cruise. 

Hosts and Facilitators 

IWISC-1 will be hosted by Erik Hollnagel, with featured facilitation and thought leadership from:  

• Tom McDaniel; Nippin Anand; Pete McCarthy; and James Norman

PROGRAMME

Wednesday June 24

• 09:00 Welcome / Erik & David 
• Local Information / Henning 
•  Workshop Overview / Tom McDaniel  
• The Metamorphosis of Safety: From Absence to Presence / Hollnagel
•  The Democratization of Flight Data / James Norman

 Morning Coffee Break

•  Adaptive Safety Learning / Pete McCarthy 
• Seven Steps that Make it Easier for Work to Go Well / Pete McCarthy 
• Bringing the Incremental Safety Practice Approach / Nikki Damen (TBCB)

12:25 – 13:25  Lunch Break

•  Resilience-focused Debriefing / Torben Nordahl Amorøe 
• Doing Difficult Well / Hillary Bennett
• Have we ever learnt the incremental approach? From ISO to FRAM through four decades'/ Jeanette Hounsgaard

 Afternoon Coffee Break

•  Working Groups: Thematic Discussions / Tom McDaniel 
• Wrap-up and Conclusions / David Slater 
• Final Expert Panel: Quo Vadis?
• Announcement of IWISC-2

16:30 End of workshop

Venue 

The workshop will be hosted at IDA Conference (The Danish Society of Engineers). IDA Conference Centre, Kalvebod Brygge 31–33, Central Copenhagen, Denmark 

Workshop Format (24 June) 

The day will consist of four themed workshops, each built around:  

• Short framing inputs from invited contributors 
• Facilitated group discussion panel reflection drawing on participant experience 

 The emphasis throughout will be on work-as-done, concrete examples, and the practical conditions under which incremental improvements emerge, persist, or fail. Rather than producing polished “best practice” statements, the workshops are intended to surface:  

• Tensions, trade-offs, and local adaptations 
• Mechanisms of learning that operate below formal programmes 
• Conditions that enable or inhibit incremental safety improvement 

Who Should Attend 

• Safety professionals and operational leaders 
• Researchers working in Safety-II, resilience engineering, and systems thinking 
• Regulators and policy specialists interested in learning-oriented approaches 
• Practitioners with concrete experience of incremental change in complex systems 

 Delegates are expected from across Europe and beyond.  Participation will be by expression of interest, aligned with the workshop’s interactive format. 

Why Attend IWISC-1 

Participants will:  

• Engage directly with the emerging science and practice of incremental safety culture 
• Contribute to shaping an international research-practice agenda from its outset 
• Take part in sustained dialogue with peers facing similar systemic challenges 
• Help develop methods that strengthen resilience, safe performance, quality, and productivity — without resorting to simplistic control or compliance narratives 

By the time of IWISC-1, two major publications will provide a shared conceptual foundation:  

• Hollnagel, E. & Slater, D.(Eds.) Incremental Safety Practices. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
  A collected volume documenting incremental safety practices from multiple domains and countries. 
• Hollnagel, E. Decremental and Incremental Safety Cultures: Safety-I and Safety-II Revisited. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
  A textbook-style treatment of the scientific and theoretical foundations of incremental safety. 

REGISTRATION  -  Price in DKK (approximate price in Euro)

Registration procedure for the webinar:
Once you have registered you will receive a confirmation e-mail. At the bottom of this mail you will find a link to the webinar. You log in through this link and are forwarded to the site where the webinar is shown.

Should you have any problems logging in, you are welcome to contact us at: webinarsupport@ida.dk

Also check out our FAQ site where you can get answers to the most frequently asked questions in connection with webinars: FAQ about IDA webinars

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You can read more about consent here.