Sidney Dekker Explained

Sidney W. A. Dekker is Professor in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, where he founded the Safety Science Innovation Lab.^[1] He is a trained mediator and he volunteers as a crisis chaplain.

Previously, Dekker was Professor of human factors and system safety at Lund University in Sweden,^[2] where he founded the Leonardo da Vinci Laboratory for Complexity and Systems Thinking, and flew as First Officer on Boeing 737s for Sterling and later Cimber Airlines out of Copenhagen. He is an avid piano player. Dekker is a high-profile scholar (h-index = 63)^[3] and is known globally for his work in the fields of human factors and safety. He founded the terms Safety Differently and Restorative Just Culture which have since turned into global movements for change. They encourage organisations to declutter their bureaucracy and enhance the capacities in people and processes that make things go well—and to offer compassion, restoration and learning when they don’t. Part of the group of founding scientists behind 'Resilience Engineering,' his work has inspired the birth of HOP (Human and Organizational Performance), New View Safety, Learning Teams, and more.^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}

Publications

Books

• Safety Theater (2025)
• Restorative Just Culture (2025)
• Ten virtues of a positive safety culture (2025)
• Being a Crisis Chaplain (2025)
• Random Noise (2024)
• Stop Blaming (2023)
• Do Safety Differently (2022)
• Compliance Capitalism (2021)
• Foundations of Safety Science: A century of understanding accidents and disasters (2019)
• The Safety Anarchist (2017)
• The End of Heaven (2017)
• Just Culture: Restoring Trust and Accountability in your Organization (2016)
• Safety Differently: Human Factors for a New Era (2015)
• The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error (2014)
• Second Victim: Error, guilt, trauma and resilience (2013)
• Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability (2012)
• Drift into Failure: From hunting broken components to understanding complex systems (2011)
• Patient Safety: A human factors approach (2011)
• The Field Guide to Human Error Investigations (2002)

Documentaries

• The Complexity of Failure — in collaboration with Brisbane-based RideFree Media
• Doing Safety Differently — in collaboration with Brisbane-based RideFree Media
• Just Culture: The Movie — in collaboration with Brisbane-based RideFree Media
• Safety Differently: The Movie^[7] – in collaboration with Brisbane-based RideFree Media, Sidney directed and presented his debut documentary in 2017.

External links

• Leonardo da Vinci Laboratory for Complexity and Systems Thinking official website

Notes and References

1. Web site: Safety Science Innovation Lab - Our Vision . 1 July 2014. Griffith University.
2. Web site: Sidney Dekker. 1 July 2014. Lund University.
3. Web site: Sidney Dekker. 1 April 2017. Google Scholar.
4. Web site: Brisbane 2014 - Program. 1 July 2014. devopsdays.org.
5. Web site: Sidney Dekker - Role & Resume. 1 July 2014. SAFEmap International.
6. Web site: UQCCR - Professor Sidney Dekker. 1 July 2014. The University of Queensland.
7. Web site: Safety Differently.