Challenges for implementing research in practice in health and safety Dr Luise Vassie ESRC LFI Seminar 5 British Safety Council, London 11 June 2015

 Historical rule-based approach  Developing a culture of evidence based practice  Identification of priority areas and knowledge gaps  Way forward  Some examples Introduction

 Practice historically driven by rules, customs and practice  Goal-setting regulation allows scope for organisations to develop approaches to risk control  Arguably codes and guides shape practice rather than stimulate the rational search for better protection  Tendency to train health and safety practitioners to learn rules or facts to apply in certain situation Historical rule-based approach

 Knowledge of nature and scale of risks and effectiveness of interventions is only provisional  Good/best practice can only be founded on best currently available knowledge  Offers opportunities for improved quality in risk control and quality assured information  Strengthens the role of the professional practitioner Rule-based vs evidence-based approach

 Evidence base required in two areas:  What matters?  What works?  Quality of evidence-base is mixed - some adds little to knowledge base  commissioning process  evaluates poorly designed interventions  interventions with minimal impact Evidence-base

 Circumstances for EB approach rarely met in organisational settings  Rational approach to prevention through systematic examination of organisational data  Input vs output performance measures  Intervention evaluation - planning implementation and evaluation at the outset Developing of culture of evidence- based (informed) practice

 Academic vs practitioner view  Leverage for individual and corporate behaviour change  Changing worker behaviour, importance of safety culture, supply chain influence, impact of economic incentives and effects of sanctions Priority areas and knowledge gaps

 Appreciating how evidence is used by stakeholders  what’s good enough  dissemination channels  Generating research evidence  rigour in commissioning process  closer working between stakeholders  longitudinal assessment of sustainability of change  Secondary reviews of ‘what works’ Way forward…

 Developing professional practice  practitioner education  continuing professional development (CPD)  ethical practice Way forward…

 IOSH, UK, research summaries (‘research lite’)  IRSST, Canada, code of practice on knowledge transfer Some examples…

IOSH research summaries  What’s the problem?  What did our researchers do?  What did our researchers find out  What does the research mean?  Don’t forget…  What’s next?

 Anchoring of the need for the research project  Conducting the research  Translating the knowledge  Evaluating the impacts IRSST code of practice on knowledge transfer

‘But more than that we want you to leave here feeling that we all could make very real difference to the world we live in if we could work together. In a world of –isms and –ologies, of expertise so refined that only experts understand it, we have brought together scientists, artists and technologists to create a distinctive culture, one that makes the possibilities of the future come to life in a way that we can all comprehend’ T.Smit, The Eden Project: The Guide 2001 Finally…

Any questions?