The Regulatory Body's Perspectives on Safety Culture

Safety Culture has traditionally been treated as an issue primarily related to the operators of nuclear (and other) installations. Although there is still a lack of consensus on many aspects of safety culture, there is meanwhile a large consensus on the importance of a good safety culture in each and every nuclear installation. As the Fukushima accident clearly highlighted, though, it is not enough to focus merely on licencees. There is a need to adopt a broader view on the entire overall system of stakeholders (such as manufacturers, contractors, international organizations, regulatory authorities, research organizations, as well as political institutions, the media and the public, etc.) and on how the participants in this overall system mutually influence each other. Each participant in the system has its own specific (safety) culture, but at the same time it is part of the overall culture based on general societal norms and values.