The Nuclear Industry Safety Culture Inventory (NISCI) is a tool for nuclear organisations in Great Britain to accurately measure their safety cultures and benchmark their results, helping them identify strengths and opportunities for improvement.
The NISCI was developed by a team of academics from Alliance Manchester Business School, on behalf of ONR. The academic team developed the NISCI specifically for the nuclear industry in Great Britain and sought feedback from representatives of all our licensees throughout its development.
The result is a bespoke tool, uniquely suited to the assessment of safety culture across Great Britain’s nuclear industry. The academic team developed it to the highest standards of psychometric rigour using a seven-phase process including interviews, item piloting, psychometric evaluation, and validation.
The tool assesses six broad dimensions and 15 subdimensions of safety culture and is available in three formats: full form (60 items), short form (30 items), or super-short form (15 items).
Due to the rigorous development and iterative refinement based on industry feedback, the NISCI provides a rich evaluation of safety culture across the full nuclear lifecycle. Its scores can predict safety performance as rated by licensee employees and contractors, as well as ONR inspectors. Learn more about its development in this report.
Although the NISCI provides the most comprehensive and nuanced assessment of safety culture in the nuclear industry to date, it should only be used alongside other data, including qualitative data from the local environment, especially when informing decision-making or developing policy.
For further information, please contact nisci@onr.gov.uk.
Is your organisation interested in using the NISCI?
Frequently asked questions
What is the Nuclear Industry Safety Culture Inventory (NISCI)?
The NISCI is a software-based survey that organisations working in Great Britain’s nuclear industry can register to use. Once registered, the organisation sets up the survey before sending a URL or QR code to their employees and contractors who then complete the survey. Once the organisation closes the survey, it then generates reports which provide the organisation with anonymised survey results benchmarked against industry mean results and quartiles. This helps organisations identify strengths and weaknesses in their safety cultures so that they can target areas to follow up on and improve.
How do I enter survey responses collected by using a paper version of the tool into the dataset?
You will need to manually enter any paper responses you receive into the dataset. Alternatively, you can ask Snap Surveys to enter the responses for you. Please note that Snap Surveys charges a fee for this service. You can contact them via Projects@SnapSurveys.com.
Am I able to modify the survey items?
No. The survey items have been subject to rigorous development and validation by a team of academics, and therefore you are unable to modify them. The academic team developed the survey items by engaging with all licensees and some supply chain partners, so you can be assured that the items are an accurate measure of safety culture in Great Britain’s nuclear industry and that your employees and contractors will understand them.
I want to just measure one dimension; can I do this?
Yes. If, for example, you have concerns about the willingness of people to report safety concerns, you can opt to measure just this one dimension so that you can target actions to improve reporting. You can then repeat the survey later to see whether there have been any measurable improvements. This can help you in evaluating the effectiveness of safety campaigns.
Are the survey responses anonymous?
Yes. All responses are anonymous; we do not collect any personal data. As such, you can assure participants that their anonymity is protected.
Can I download the survey data so that I can conduct further analysis of it?
No, currently you are unable to download the survey data. This is to ensure the anonymity of survey respondents. We must comply with the UK GDPR principle of lawfulness, fairness and transparency, which requires us, amongst other things, to be clear, open and honest with people from the start about how we will use their personal data. If we were to provide you with the survey data, we would need to inform survey participants up front that we will be sharing their survey responses with their employers and that their employer may be able to identify them from their responses. This may adversely impact upon participants' willingness to complete the survey.
What internet browsers does the NISCI support, and does it work on mobiles and tablet devices?
Snap Surveys has optimised the survey for PC, tablets, and mobiles, and it has support for all internet browsers. You must access the administration portal via an internet browser on a desktop PC.
What is the process for handling enquiries?
ONR’s NISCI administration team will be the main point of contact for all enquiries, and we will work with Snap Surveys as and when required. You can contact us at: nisci@onr.gov.uk.
How will employees and contractors complete the survey?
We host the survey online, and employees and contractors access it via a dedicated URL or by scanning a QR code. They may complete it using a PC, tablet or smartphone. They may even complete it using a paper version of the survey should their organisation make this option available to them, although we discourage the use of paper surveys as this places an additional administrative burden on the user organisation.
How long does the survey take to complete?
The survey comes in three lengths: 60 items, 30 items and 15 items. The 60-item version should take no longer than 20 minutes to complete, and most people find that they complete it much quicker than this. The 30-item and 15-item versions should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete. Upon first use, we require each organisation to use the 60-item version as this is important for benchmarking purposes.
Can I add additional items?
Yes, you can add up to five additional items, which you can gather responses to on a five-point Likert scale, from strongly agree to strongly disagree. You can also add up to five questions which you can gather open text responses to.
What results does the NISCI provide?
The NISCI provides results for the following six dimensions:
- Senior leadership
- Line management
- Immersion
- Accountability
- Challenge
- Reporting
Read AMBS's research report on the NISCI to learn more.
Where can I find further guidance on how to use the NISCI?
Further guidance is available on the Snap Surveys website.
Where is the NISCI hosted?
We store all survey responses on a secure UK-based server, hosted by ANS Group Ltd. Snap Surveys develop and manage the underlying survey platform technology. Both organisations hold the ISO 27001 accreditation.
More information about their security measures is available via these links (ANS and Snap Surveys).
Does ONR have access to user accounts and the results?
Our NISCI administration team have full administration rights to the system, meaning they can access user accounts and results should the need arise. However, they will only routinely process the anonymised data for account issues, research purposes and the creation of benchmarking datasets to identify areas of good practice so that organisations may learn from one another.
It is ONR policy that our NISCI administration team will not share any attributable survey results with ONR inspectors.
How can users give feedback to ONR on potential improvements to the system?
We welcome and encourage feedback from users. If you have any suggestions, please send them by email to nisci@onr.gov.uk.