![]() ![]() A comparison of how each group formed and what safety activities were implemented reveals shared safety practices and, perhaps more importantly, distinct needs that were addressed for each home institution. At the end of 2016, Northwestern University and The University of Chicago visited The Dow Lab Safety Academy with the UMN JST and established their own LSTs shortly after. (12) Over time, the UMN JST/Dow model served as a platform for other university groups to emulate. This LST was the first to empower academic researchers themselves (graduate students and postdocs) to take leadership roles in improving the culture of safety in chemical laboratories. In 2012, The Dow Chemical Company started a partnership with the University of Minnesota Joint Safety Team (UMN JST). (6−11)Īmong various efforts to tackle these open-ended challenges and enhance academic safety culture, a prominent grassroots movement has emerged through the establishment of researcher-led laboratory safety teams (LSTs). These themes have been echoed by editorials, commentaries, and viewpoints aimed at improving chemical safety knowledge and education for academic researchers and institutions as a whole. They identify key barriers to safety research and raise a call for action and change. (5) One of their main assertions is that the study of academic lab safety is currently underdeveloped and not as rigorously quantitative as other scientific fields. ![]() Ménard and Trant recently provided a comprehensive review and critique of this unmet need over the past decade, specifically calling for action to be taken to study contributing factors in laboratory accidents, attitudes about safety and behavioral practices, safety training research, and barriers to safety research. (2−4) Indeed, the scope of academic lab safety research has been remarkably limited to date. (1) Changing these three attributes is critical to strengthening an academic department’s safety culture, but given the diversity of research interests and unique cultures between different departments, these changes often requires long-term efforts and investments that are challenging to measure and generalize into universal practices. ![]() ![]() The American Chemical Society (ACS) Safety Culture Task Force of the ACS Committee on Chemical Safety defines an institution’s safety culture as a “reflection of the actions, attitudes, and behaviors of its members concerning safety” in a 2012 report. Combined with both top-down backing from institution leaders and bottom-up support from student researchers, safety moments remain a low-barrier risk reduction strategy that is easy to implement, encourages local dialogue on safety, combats complacency, and holds potential for facilitating long-term improvements to academic lab safety culture. Key components of model safety moment slides are presented, alongside centralized resources assembled by student-led laboratory safety teams, which can also be extended to posters, social media platforms, online videos, and other forms of scientific communication. This commentary provides an overview of designing effective safety moments and tailoring them to highlight practical safety needs and considerations. Intended to catalyze brief discussions at the beginning of meetings and presentations, these materials provide a proactive way for students and faculty to engage in open communication on diverse research safety topics across science and engineering. For goals of improving chemical safety education with nonformal endeavors, safety moments are ∼1–2 slides that focus on raising awareness and knowledge for routine safety issues in research laboratories. Showcasing best practices and sharing practical solutions for recognizing hazards and minimizing risks represent one way of reinforcing a research community’s actions, attitudes, and behavior toward safety. Chemical safety education is a critical aspect of an integrated culture of safety in academic research settings. ![]()
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