As the Nuclear Industry Safety Culture Inventory (NISCI) marks its first anniversary, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is encouraging organisations across the industry to consider how the tool can support stronger safety culture and better governance.
Since its launch in June 2025, the NISCI has been adopted by over half of Britain's licensed nuclear sites as well as several supply chain organisations, demonstrating the sector's appetite for structured and evidence-based reflections on safety culture.
What is the NISCI?
The NISCI is a practical and non-prescriptive tool that helps organisations understand the cultural factors underpinning safety and organisational performance.
It is not a compliance exercise and does not set targets or represent a regulatory judgement. It is designed to support informed leadership discussion, leading to proportionate action owned by the organisation itself.
Why does it matter?
Safety culture shapes how people make decisions, raise concerns, and respond to risk.
The NISCI also has direct relevance to Recommendation 38 of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce Review, which calls on organisation boards to assess and actively manage safety culture, and explicitly references the NISCI as a means of doing so.
Using the NISCI
For those already using the NISCI, the key question is how the learning it generates can be sustained and integrated into broader organisational processes rather than treated as a one-off exercise.
The benefits go beyond individual organisations, enabling benchmarking over time and across the sector, and allowing ONR to develop richer and anonymised industry-level insights to support collective learning.
Nick Shaw, Principal Nuclear Safety Inspector, said:
“We are pleased to see many organisations using the NISCI to understand and strengthen their safety culture and we want to see this momentum grow, as the whole nuclear industry stands to benefit from wider uptake.
“The more organisations that engage with the NISCI, the richer the picture we can build together, and the better placed the whole industry will be to learn and improve."
You can find more information, including guidance and access to the tool, on the ONR website.
During the coming weeks, we will be sharing videos on our external platforms outlining the ways the NISCI can be used and how it can best support safety culture.