According to the  2014 National Academies Publication "SAFE SCIENCE: Promoting a Culture of Safety in Academic Chemical Research".<i> "Laboratory safety culture is strongly influenced by the extent to which research workers are consulted about safety rules and procedures."  </i>The Joint Safety Team (JST) is a researcher-led organization focused on improving the culture of safety in chemical laboratories at the University of Minnesota. The JST consists of all graduate student or postdoc Laboratory Safety Officers (LSOs) within the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Over the past five years, the JST in partnership with The Dow Chemical Company and The Valspar Corporation, has worked primarily to improve the culture of safety within the two departments in addition to safe lab practices. This talk will encompass the group's organizational structure, lessons that have been learned in the past five years, and some of the best practices that have been developed and implemented. Finally the presentation will address the questions of whether the group's characteristic "bottom-up" approach has been sustainable, scalable, or adaptable.<br/> <br/>

The Joint Safety Team: A researcher-led initiative for improving academic safety clture

254th National Meeting (2017)

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