Safety, Human Performance, System: From Theory to Practice

On 24-26 September, EUROCONTROL/NAV-Portugal hosted a conference in Lisbon entitled Safety, Human Performance, System: From Theory to Practice. Over 150 people in aviation and other industries participated, including safety specialists, human factors specialists, engineers, managers, and regulators.

The conference (following a conference last year on safety and human performance, where a White Paper on SafetyI and Safety-II was introduced), had the aim to help progress the implementation of progressive thinking. Below is an outline of the main sessions of the event. In the following few blogs, I will discuss develop some of my thoughts during the conference. The presentations can be downloaded here.


Session 1:

Prof. Richard Cook (School of Technology and Health at Royal Institute of Technology,  Stockholm, Sweden) – Only bad choices

Sebastian Däunert (DFS, Germany) – Limits of safety

Session 2: Prof. David Slater (Cambrensis, UK) – Simple but complex (Clayton Tunnel – a test case)

Session 3: Prof. Chris Johnson – (Glasgow University, UK) – Software tools to increase the competence, consistency and creativity of ATM incident investigators

Session 4: Jean Marc Flon (DSNA, France) – Starting to move from Safety-I to Safety-II at CDG

Session 5:

Steven Shorrock – (EUROCONTROL, France) – Systems Thinking for Safety: Ten Principles (A White Paper) (See here for the White Paper)

Lee Boulton & Craig Foster (NATS, UK) – The (Very) Temporary Operating Instruction.

Session 6: Thomas Jaekel (DFS, Germany) – ATM Day to Day operations – work as done.

Session 7: Prof. Erik Hollnagel (University of Southern Denmark and Centre for Quality Improvement, Region of Southern Denmark) – Safety-II in practice – Realigning work-as-imagined with work-as-done

Session 8: Paula Santos (NAV Portugal) – Modelling day to day ATM

Session 9:

Radu Cioponea (EUROCONTROL) and Christoph Peters (DFS) – Weak Signals

Prof. David Woods (Ohio State University) – The mystery of sustained adaptability.

Session 11: Panel and interactive session with Prof. Johnson, Prof. Woods Prof. Hollnagel, Prof. Cook and Prof. Slater, Dr. Steven Shorrock. Moderated session by SHP SG Co-chairs Joerg Leonhardt and Tony Licu.


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Author: stevenshorrock

This blog is written by Dr Steven Shorrock, a Chartered Psychologist and Chartered Ergonomist and Human Factors Specialist. I work as an interdisciplinary humanistic, systems and design practitioner in safety critical industries. In 2025, I was awarded the status of Fellow of the British Psychological Society (FBPsS) for my practice and research in transportation, healthcare and other industries. This is the highest designation the society can bestow, showing recognition of significant contribution to the advancement or communication of psychological knowledge and practice by research, teaching, publications and public service, and by organising and developing the work of others. I am also an Adjunct Associate Professor at University of the Sunshine Coast, Centre for Human Factors & Sociotechnical Systems, and Faculty at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. I blog in a personal capacity. Views expressed here are mine and not those of any affiliated organisation. LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/steveshorrock/ Email: contact[at]humanisticsystems[dot]com

3 thoughts

  1. Thank you Steven. I will read with great interest. I have also downloaded the 10 principles paper. Best regards, Yves

    Sent from my iPad

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