18/05/2026
News
NeTWork 2026: “Is Safety so Special?”
Foncsi supports the international NeTWork and contributes to organizing its annual seminar. The 2026 seminar was held from May 11 to 13 and focused on the specificity of safety.
The Foncsi has been supporting the international scientific NeTWork (New and emerging Technologies and Work) for about fifteen years. This network brings together leading global experts on high-risk organizations.
The Foundation acts as a financier and organizer of the annual seminar; it also coordinates and publishes the results in its collection with Springer.
2026: A Seminar on the Specificity of Safety
Led by Gudela Grote (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), Jean‑Christophe Le Coze (Ineris, France), and Corinne Bieder (Foncsi), the annual NeTWork seminar was held at the Royaumont Abbey (France) from May 11 to 13, 2026.
THE THEME – “Is Safety so Special?”
In 2026, the NeTWork seminar explored the specificity of safety and safety management. Managing safety is indeed based on models and practices tailored to its specific objectives and constraints.
This seminar sought to characterize how the models, tools, and practices of safety management differ from those used to manage other organizational objectives.
Discussions among participants, who came from diverse backgrounds, shed light on the issue from multiple perspectives, highlighting the challenges and tensions involved in integrating safety versus differentiating it.
International experts
Nearly fifteen international experts took part in this seminar. They had submitted a position paper in advance, which was presented and discussed during the seminar.
- Gudela Grote, ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
- Jean-Christophe Le Coze, Ineris (France)
- Corinne Bieder, Foncsi (France)
- Mathilde Bourrier, Université de Genève (Switzerland)
- Teemu Reiman, Lilikoi (Finland)
- Marc Baumgartner, Skyguide (Switzerland)
- Siri Wiig, Université de Stavanger (Norway)
- Catherine Calderwood, Université de Strathclyde (United-Kingdom)
- Sim Sitkin, Université de Duke (United-States)
- Martijn Flinterman, Rijkswaterstaat (Netherlands)
- Carsten Busch, Mind The Risk (Norway)
- Anthony Smoker, Université de Lund (Sweden)
- Rhona Flin, Université de Robert Gordon (United-Kingdom)
- Shin-etsu Sugawara, Université de Kansai (Japan)
An open-access SpringerBrief
The discussions and suggestions from the NeTWork seminar will enable the authors to further develop their papers, which will then be published in the open-access collection SpringerBriefs in Safety Management, edited by Foncsi and published by Springer.
This publication will be in open-access.
