SHINe researcher, Associate Professor Rita Peihua Zhang, was invited to join CSRA’s Community of Practice (CoP) panel discussion on Safety Through Partnership in December 2025.
In December 2025, Associate Professor Rita Peihua Zhang from SHINe participated in the Construction Safety Research Alliance’s (CSRA) Community of Practice (CoP) panel discussion on Safety Through Partnership. This session explored how collaboration across organisations can turn shared expertise and insights into meaningful safety actions and improvements.
The panel brought together diverse and complementary perspectives, with panellists including Dawn Glossa from the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), Scott Aaronson from the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), and Rita Zhang from SHINe. Chaired by Dr Elif Erkal from CSRA, the panel discussion explored how partnerships have advanced safety priorities, supported innovation, and improved decision-making across organisations.
The panel delivered a clear and consistent message, i.e. partnership and collaboration are essential to advancing work health and safety (WHS) in construction and reducing serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs). Many WHS challenges extend beyond organisational boundaries. No single organisation can resolve them on its own and there is no competition when it comes to WHS.
Associate Professor Rita Peihua Zhang
The panel also emphasised the importance of impact-focused academic–industry collaboration, which is grounded in scientific research and empirical evidence and supported by effective research translation. Rita shared SHINe’s two-directional partnership model:
- Practice to research – working with industry partners to identify, develop and deliver projects that respond to urgent and challenging WHS issues; and
- Research to practice – working with industry partners to translate research outcomes into practical tools and approaches that organisations can readily implement.
Rita also reflected on how collaboration with industry partners and CSRA has shaped the direction and outcomes of SHINe’s first project, Decluttering Health and Safety Management Activities in Construction. Delivered as a collaborative initiative between SHINe and CSRA, the project was conducted in parallel in Australia and the United States. The two teams actively exchanged methodological ideas and shared early findings, which was critical to refine their respective approaches and strengthen project outcomes. Melbourne Park, a SHINe member organisation and the industry lead on the project, played an instrumental role in co-designing the research methodology with the SHINe research team. Their existing process-mapping approach informed the development of a practical guide for creating visual process maps that show how health and safety management activities are required and carried out by different industry stakeholders, and how these maps can be used to collaboratively identify where safety clutter exists, how it is created, and what are the potential strategies to reduce it.
The panel also reflected on challenges encountered in partnerships, strategies for coping with them, as well as future opportunities for cross-organisational collaboration to further improve construction WHS. Rita highlighted that the collaboration between SHINe and CSRA provides the bridge between two leading construction WHS research groups, connecting member organisations and researchers to develop strategies that enhance construction WHS across geographies and generate global impact.
