Safety, culture, resilience: shaping communities’ safety and experience

This presentation challenges the idea that organisational culture can be improved simply through compliance, rules, or training, arguing that these approaches are no longer enough to address complex modern risks. Drawing on lessons from post-Grenfell reforms and international experience, the talk calls on structural engineers to demonstrate greater ambition and moral courage by placing people’s lived experiences at the centre of decision-making and creating organisations that prioritise human impact alongside technical and regulatory requirements.

Speaker

Gill Kernick

Gill Kernick

Director Culture and Strategy Realisation, Arup

Gill is the author of Catastrophe and Systemic Change: Learning from the Grenfell Tower Fire and Other Disasters, combining her experience consulting organisations in high hazard industries with a deeply personal connection to the 2017 fire. From 2011 to 2014 Gill lived on the 21st floor of Grenfell, seven of her immediate neighbours were among the seventy-two deaths. In 2022 Gill joined Arup where she leads a global programme to elevate Arup's safety culture. She is a member of the statutory residents advisory panel set up under the new regulatory regime.

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Training

Building safety: culture, risk and innovation

Building safety: culture, risk and innovation

Watch key presentations from the Structural safety and risk conference 2026 and understand how to build a safety culture and how AI improves the understanding of structural safety risks.

Date – 18 June 2026

Author – Various

Training

Structural fire safety and risks in occupied Higher-Risk Buildings

Structural fire safety and risks in occupied Higher-Risk Buildings

Watch key presentations from the Structural safety and risk conference 2026 and understand structural risks associated with fire and occupied Higher-Risk Buildings.

Date – 18 June 2026

Author – Various