Oversight authority and operators of Swiss nuclear facilities continue to develop safety culture
The Country-Specific Safety Culture Forum Switzerland took place in Bern on 19 and 20 November 2024. Representatives from various institutions discussed Switzerland’s national culture and analysed its influence on the safety and oversight culture of nuclear facilities. The aim is to continuously improve safety and security. The results will be summarised in a report and published.
Is there a Swiss culture? If so, what are its characteristics? And what influence do they have on the safety and oversight culture of Swiss nuclear facilities and authorities? These were precisely the questions addressed at the Country-Specific Safety Culture Forum (CSSCF) Switzerland on 19 and 20 November 2024 in Bern. The Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI), the operators of Swiss nuclear facilities and numerous authorities explored these questions under the leadership and moderation of the international organisations Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO). The results will be incorporated into a report by the NEA and are expected to be published in summer 2025.
“In addition to technology, the people and organisations that operate or supervise nuclear facilities also have a decisive influence on their safety. The safety culture of the operating organisations and the oversight culture of the supervisory authorities play a key role here, as past serious nuclear accidents have made clear,” states ENSI Director Marc Kenzelmann.
As past serious nuclear accidents have made clear, the safety of nuclear facilities does not depend on technology alone. Nuclear facilities are complex socio-technical systems. In addition to the technology, the people and organisations that operate or supervise these facilities also have a decisive influence on their safety. The safety culture of the operating organisations and supervisory authorities plays a central role in this.
However, the operators and authorities are also part of a larger whole. The national and international context and the culture of our country determine the way we all think, our attitudes and beliefs and, as a result, our behaviour in our day-to-day work, often without us being aware of it. The CSSCF country-specific safety culture forum is about exploring the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that are deeply rooted in a country and identifying how these influence the safety and oversight culture, both positively and negatively.
“We have succeeded in using this forum to reflect openly on the beneficial, but also on possible negative influences of the “Swiss culture” on the safety culture and the oversight culture of nuclear facilities and authorities,” adds Andreas Abegg, Chairman of the ENSI Board.
The NEA, a sub-organisation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and WANO have developed the forum to promote dialogue on the safety and oversight culture and to enable introspective reflection by the participants, the results of which will be analysed by the NEA and made available in the form of a public report: In the first phase, interviews will be conducted with individuals from the supervisory and other authorities as well as the operators. In the second phase, initial findings will be used to provide a scenario of fictitious but realistic scenes. These in turn will be discussed in working groups with the aim of identifying national cultural characteristics and reflecting on their influence on the safety and oversight culture.
Before Switzerland (2024), Japan (2023), Canada (2022), Finland (2019) and Sweden (2018) have so far organised a Country-Specific Safety Culture Forum.
The Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI), the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC), the operators of Swiss nuclear facilities, the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and representatives of the cantons, Representatives of research institutions (Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), supervisory service providers (Swiss Association for Technical Inspections (SVTI)) took part in the forum, which was chaired and moderated by the NEA and WANO.
