With funding uncertainty, shifting grant landscapes, and AI throwing the pace of change into hyperdrive, it’s a stressful time, especially for academic labs.
Pressure needs a pathway, and the University Washington (UW) found that its Laboratory Safety Awards & Innovation Event was the release everyone needed. On December 9, the university recognized researchers across campuses, labs, and disciplines for safety performance.
“Having an opportunity to highlight their work in a positive way has been really important,” said Zara Llewellyn, Assistant Director of Research Safety. “Not just the research, but also all the hard work that researchers do to make that happen in a safe environment.”
After the 2025 event, the Laboratory Safety Institute sat down with Zara Llewellyn and Alex Hagen, UW’s Chemical Hygiene Officer, to ask what they’ve learned from building their awards program that can help other organizations. This is what they told us.
It’s OK to Start Small
UW’s awards program did not begin as an awards program at all. According to Hagen, it grew out of a two-year laboratory safety initiative focused on a small pilot group of some of the more complex and high-hazard labs.
“The original awards event was really to recognize groups within that pilot group who had come up with ways to improve safety and who had made significant improvement in their practices,” Hagen said. “We had such a positive response to that event that we decided this would be great to do for everybody.”
Starting with a very limited budget six years ago, the program grew to include about 1,000 labs, representing a wide range of disciplines, hazards, and research environments.
Go With What You’ve Got
In order to have an award contest, you need a scoring mechanism. Rather than invent something new, the EHS department used a metric that researchers already knew and trusted: the university’s safety inspection checklist. From this checklist, an advisory task force identified approximately 30 core questions that represent baseline expectations and best practices. Only labs that score 85% or higher on these questions are considered award candidates.
See Beyond the Scores
While safety ratings formed the foundation of the awards, they were not the only criterion. “We’re looking for people who partner with us, who prioritize safety and have it as part of their work,” Hagen explained. Other award considerations include responsiveness to inspection reports and participation in surveys or safety initiatives.
The awards committee also made a special effort to consider the individual challenges of each lab. For example, a lab that manages hundreds of chemicals or works with radioactive or biological hazards cannot be evaluated by the same standards as a lab with fewer risks. Research teams that spend most of their time in the field cannot be judged by the same cleanliness criteria as teams that work primarily in the lab.
In recent years, UW expanded recognition beyond individual labs to include entire departments, which Hagen says was key to ensuring that strong, collective safety cultures are acknowledged alongside standout departments.
Incentivize Without Cash
While some institutions offer monetary safety awards, UW opted against it, and not simply to save money. They wanted something uncomplicated and impactful, and a reward that could be easily shared by a team or department. They settled on a simple symbol that labs meeting the performance threshold could stick on their door. “This gives people pride in the fruits of their efforts,” Hagen explained.
Non-monetary rewards can be especially effective because they reinforce positive behavior without shifting the focus to the extrinsic reward, helping to build a culture where safety itself is valued and noticed. Public recognition also encourages peer accountability, sparks conversation, and motivates other labs to strive for the same standard. Keeping money out of the equation helps ensure that the awards program does not discourage the reporting of incidents, in compliance with OSHA.
Celebrating the Worker Bee
As the awards program matured, the committee began to realize that many of those making meaningful safety contributions were outside traditional leadership roles, so they created a new “Partner in Safety” award to recognize facilities staff, building managers, department administrators, and research staff whose efforts have improved safety across multiple groups. According to Hagen, the new award has become one of the most liked and talked-about award categories, bringing visibility and recognition to lab personnel who rarely receive it.
Sharing Safety Innovations Across Campus
Besides the safety awards, the program recognizes safety innovations the researchers have developed. “People want to hear from their peers,” Hagen said. “That’s what gets them excited.” Award recipients contribute short summaries of safety improvements, which are displayed as posters at the ceremony and shared online.The peer-to-peer exchange has helped safety ideas cross-pollinate across departments that have very limited interaction otherwise.
Leadership Buy-In Makes the Difference
According to Llewellyn, sustained leadership support has been critical to the program’s success. “From the highest level, our provost has always supported this,” she said. “That buy-in makes a huge difference.” Senior leadership participation reinforces the message that safety is integral to research excellence, not separate from it.
Lasting Value
Everybody appreciates recognition, and in challenging times, it can make a big difference in employee satisfaction and well-being. From facilitating knowledge-sharing to recognizing individuals and teams, to providing much-needed release for researchers and lab personnel, safety awards provide value far beyond the trophy.
“The success has really been making the focus on the researchers and the staff outside of EHS—letting them shine,” Hagen said.