2023: Icsi, after 20 years, still serving safety culture

In 2023, Icsi celebrates its 20th birthday! As the new year begins, Ivan Boissières, Director General, outlines the association’s principal projects for 2023. They are structured around three strategic axes: exchange & sharing, its diverse community, and innovation & operationalization.

Exchange & sharing: new discussion groups

Because one person does not hold all the keys to safety, and because this is what makes us who we are, Icsi will continue to make its broad-based mission – exchange and sharing – one of its priorities in 2023.

Discussion groups will remain, of course, at the heart of our activity. We are coming to the end of a cycle, and four groups will conclude their work this year: Alert Processes and Crisis Management, Social Dialogue and Safety Culture, Covid-19 and Risk Management, and Leadership under Uncertainty. The results of their efforts will be disseminated in various forms (Notebooks, training programs, Café-meetups, webinars, etc.). But that’s not all, in fact, quite the contrary... We will be launching some new discussion groups! On topics that have been suggested to us by our members. For example, the two new groups that will be launched in the coming months will focus on the impact of strategic changes on safety and widescale organizational transformations, and improving the reliability of human performance.

Save the date: our 20th anniversary!

As usual, we will be running some big events, and, here too, Icsi will not rest on its laurels. Especially as this year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of our association. On October 11, at the Maison de la Chimie (Paris), we will bring together our community — everyone who has worked to improve safety culture over the past 20 years. This will not only be an opportunity to share the results of our work, but also to look ahead to the new safety challenges of tomorrow, in the context of the broader issues of the energy and ecological transition. We can already announce that senior representatives of Icsi’s biggest partners will be present, notably TotalEnergies, Air France, Orano, and SNCF, and we’re looking forward to seeing leading trade unionists and officials from local and regional authorities.

Serving a diverse community

Another key axis of Icsi’s work, which will continue this year, is its commitment to all actors working in the domain of safety, while taking into account the diverse nature of the community. We are particularly interested in working with VSEs and SMEs, trade unions and regional authorities because, as a not-for-profit organization, we must look beyond our large industrial partners, and ensure that the wider community benefits from our work.

Therefore, 2023 will see the continuation of our partnership with Mase. The ‘Mase Academy’ is a platform that was co-constructed by Icsi and Mase. It is dedicated to developing an integrated safety culture in VSEs and SMEs, and is entering its 4th year. As in previous years, new resources will be created, and the platform will be offered (free of charge) to Mase members in new regions, thus extending its benefits to an even wider community.

Turning to trade unions, the outcomes of the work that has been carried out in recent years will be published in the form of an ‘Industrial Safety Notebook’ on social dialogue and safety. This will be accompanied by the launch of a dedicated training program for employee representatives, which will be tested by the CFDT.

Finally, since 2021, Icsi has been working closely with the Rouen-Normandy metropolitan area to develop a safety culture for all its stakeholders: industry, local authorities and the general public. Here again, Icsi will continue its efforts in 2023. Last year, the association carried out a sociological study with a view to the establishment of a citizen participation body, and this year, the association will continue to offer support during the implementation of this new, large-scale project, and provide training to elected officials.

Dedicated to safety culture... putting theory into practice

Of course, in addition to the projects outlined above, we will continue our usual operational activities, both in France and in Latin America.

In 2023, we will pay particular attention to meeting our members’ support and training needs in Icsi’s areas of expertise, namely: safety culture, human and organizational factors, and safety leadership. We will be using two, key levers. Our e-learning platform ‘Safety Education’, offers blended or fully-online training, and our ‘Safety Academy’ offers a wide selection of digital resources on subscription.
Moreover, we will be capitalizing on our know-how. In this context, we will develop a guide to the deployment of a ‘Just Culture’. This operational guide is of particular importance, because a just culture is a key principle of safety culture and safety leadership; it is a key objective for many of our members, and it is our job to help them.

So, as you can see, 2023 will be an important year for Icsi. Not only are we celebrating our 20th anniversary – a milestone in the history of our small association – but we will continue to move forward, launch new projects that are in the interests of our members, and be a leader in safety culture.

I would like to finish by acknowledging the work of our small, but growing team. I know that I can count on each and every one of them. And you can count on each and every one of us. I hope that in 2023, we continue our rich and rewarding efforts... to develop a safety culture!

Ivan Boissières
January 2023