Essential components of a health and safety system include legislation, compliance, awareness raising, and social dialogue. Knowledge transfer is important for prevention and behavior change in the workplace. Networks can effectively transfer knowledge, with their form following their function. Communities of practice are useful for sharing practical knowledge, as they have a domain of interest, interactive community, and shared practice. To transfer knowledge from research to policy and practice may require different approaches, including using "superconnectors" to bridge communities and providing opportunities for collaboration through networks.

1. Safety and health at work is everyone’s concern. It’s good for you. It’s good for business.
Networking for knowledge transfer in occupational safety and health
Tim Tregenza
Network manager

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Essential components of a health and safety system
Legislation
Legal base
Labour inspectorate
Effective
compliance
Problems, duties, solutions
Awareness raising
Tools, knowledge, access to professional support
Technical support
Macro and micro level
Social dialogue
EU, national, sector, local
Structured
approach

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SLIDO Poll
 How did you get your knowledge to really do your current job?
•Formal education (e.g. University degree)
•Doing my own research
•In-house training
•From colleagues and peers
•I just had to make it up as I went along!

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The importance of knowledge transfer
 Prevention requires changing the behavior of people at work
•Workers, supervisors, managers, inspectors, OSH professionals
 For people to change behaviour, they need to know why and how
 The how and why of prevention originates from research, passing to policy
and practice
 How can we effectively transfer the necessary information?
Can we create networks to share practical information to enable behavior
change in the workplace?
Can we create networks that share information from research to policy and
practice?

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Knowledge transfer via networks
“Form (ever) follows function” -
Louis Sullivan, architect
 Purpose (of building) defines the
“look and shape”
 Philosophy of efficiency:
Minimising cost and maximising
value
When looking for effective knowledge
transfer via networks:
 What knowledge do you want to share
with whom? (the “function”)
Only from this can the form be devised:
 How institutional (formal)?
 How connected (centralised)?
 How virtual (geographical)?

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Networks – formal and informal, centralised and decentralised
EU OSHA National focal
point network
Individual network – organic clusters

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Dimensions of knowledge communities (1)
Andriessen (2005) considered
3 dimensions of knowledge
communities:
• Connectivity
• Institutionality
• Virtuality
This allow us to map different
knowledge transfer networks
Virtuality
Institutionality
Connectivity
High institutionality,
high connectivity, low
virtuality.
The formal committee (e.g. SLIC)
J. H. Erik Andriessen Archetypes of
Knowledge Communities 2005

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Dimensions of knowledge communities (2)
Virtuality
Connectivity
Institutionality
High virtuality, High
institutionality, Low
connectivity.
High virtuality, low
connectivity, low
institutionality.
Connectivity
Institutionality
Virtuality
The web forum The Delphi study

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Dimensions of knowledge communities (3)
Virtuality
Connectivity
Institutionality
High virtuality, high
connectivity, low
institutionality.
Institutionality
Connectivity
Virtuality
Low institutionality,
high connectivity,
low virtuality.
The traditional community of
practice (Geographical)
The community of
practice (Virtual)

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Community of practice (CoP) – requirements
 A domain of interest
•A common theme to which the community is committed
•E.g. labour inspection in occupational safety and health
 The community
•An interactive competent community (who may not work directly with each
other) building relationships with each other to enable learning
•E.g. the inspectors meet for coffee every Friday
 The practice
•A community of practitioners developing a shared repertoire of resources
to address recurring problem
•E.g. answering the question “what did you do when you saw that?”

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CoPs for knowledge transfer in occupational safety and health
 Communities of practice offer practical knowledge transfer
 Being part of a community of practice means that individuals:
•Are better informed for decision-making
•Have increased commitment and engagement (from group membership)
 Organisations can facilitate CoPs to share knowledge on OSH issues by:
•Identifying potential community members
•Providing communication means
•Providing time for knowledge transfer
•Accepting that knowledge shared by CoPs may not be “on message”
•Accepting that membership of CoPs is organic, and cannot be forced
 This lack of control can concern organisations

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Transferring knowledge from research to policy / practice
 What knowledge should be transferred?
•The information may already have been shared via scientific journal
 Specifically, to whom should the message be transferred?
 What do the researchers want the practitioners to do with the knowledge?
 By whom should the message be transferred?
•Directly from researchers to practitioners or via intermediary?
 How should the knowledge be transferred?
•Formally or informally?
How can networks facilitate this transfer?

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Using networks to transfer research knowledge to policy and practice
 Researchers and practitioners may not be in the same communities
•Find a “superconnector” who can bridge between the two communities
•This person understands both communities and facilitates communication
 Networks can provide a common space for the communities to overlap
•Opportunities to find collaboration
•Funding to facilitate knowledge sharing
•Meetings to allow knowledge transfer
 Example: ENETOSH brings together educators, OSH people, policy-makers,
researchers on a common theme

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Networks transferring knowledge from research to practice: Example
 EU OSHA has a network of national focal points (FoP) in each Member State,
each with a focal point manager. Each FoP runs a tripartite national network
 EU OSHA publishes a triennial survey of Europe’s workplaces to provide
information to policy-makers – this information is shared primarily in report form
 To transfer knowledge, EU OSHA:
•Uses the national focal point managers as “superconnectors” to bridge
between EU level actors and national policy makers
•Uses the national focal point network as a tool to provide resources for
national policy level meetings (small-scale)
•Adapts the information available to specific national-level knowledge
highlighting the key messages

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Conclusions
 Knowledge-sharing is essential for improving prevention
 Networks are an essential means for knowledge transfer in
occupational safety and health
 People network, organisations facilitate
 Form follows function
•Know what you want to achieve and build the knowledge transfer
network accordingly
 Communities of practice can be an effective way of sharing practical
knowledge
 To reach across from research to policy and practice may need different
approaches, where:
•Organisations provide greater facilitation; and
•Networks provide a “superconnector” to make the bridge

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Thank you
EU OSHA runs and engages with
many networks to transfer
knowledge throughout the global
OSH community
All our information is available free
of charge (in up to 25 languages)
at OSHA.EUROPA.EU