Breaking the Silos: The Thinking Behind Safety on the Edge Conference.

What if the way we structure safety is part of the problem?

That question sits at the heart of Safety on the Edge, a conference co-founded by Malcolm Staves, Global Vice President of Health, Safety and Wellbeing at L’Oréal, designed to challenge how the profession connects, learns, and evolves.

Rather than following a traditional conference model, Safety on the Edge was created with a clear intent: to bring together disciplines, perspectives, and ways of thinking that too often operate in isolation.

At its core, it is built around a simple idea – safety improves when silos break down.

Built from experience, not assumption.

For Malcolm, Safety on the Edge began with reflection on years of attending industry events and identifying what was missing.

“It came from asking what my dream conference would look like after years of attending different events and seeing what worked and what didn’t. One of the frustrations was that different parts of the profession don’t naturally come together. Research tends to sit in one place, industry in another, and even within organisations you see different disciplines working separately. The idea was to bring those groups into the same space - to talk, challenge, and learn from each other. Because that’s where you start to see real progress.”

That thinking became the foundation for the conference, not to replicate existing formats, but to rethink how meaningful exchange actually happens.

A different way of bringing safety together.

Held in Baltimore, SOTE brings together an international audience of safety professionals, industry leaders, and researchers.

The four-day programme is intentionally structured to build depth over time, starting with networking and benchmarking, moving into plenary discussions, and concluding with interactive workshops designed to translate ideas into action.

Rather than a traditional lecture-style format, the conference combines keynotes, panel discussions, awards, and collaborative sessions – encouraging participation as much as observation.

The goal is not just to share insight, but to create the conditions for it to be tested, debated, and applied.

From insight to action.

A defining principle of Safety on the Edge is that learning does not end when the event does.

“It’s all about learning, networking, and then hopefully adapting - taking things back to our companies and actually doing something with it. There’s no point just listening to great ideas if they don’t translate into something practical. The real value is what you do with it afterwards.”

This emphasis on application ensures the impact of the conference extends well beyond the sessions themselves, embedding reflection and change within organisations.

A clear purpose at its core.

At its heart, Safety on the Edge is about connection between disciplines, research and practice and, between different ways of understanding risk. For Malcolm, that purpose is straightforward:

“If we break these silos and work together, we develop better programmes and we save lives. That’s really what it comes down to.”

It is this principle that continues to shape the conference and the conversations it creates.

Join Shirley Parsons at Safety on the Edge.

As an Associate of the conference, Shirley Parsons will be attending and engaging with peers from across the industry, supporting the continued development of safer, more connected organisations.

Our attending team includes: