SACCIA understands safety as a communicative achievement.

Whenever people must act together under pressure, safety depends not only on what is said, but on how shared understanding is established. SACCIA provides an evidence-based competency framework that ensures such understanding can be achieved reliably — in high-risk situations as well in complex crisis dynamics.

Why is SACCIA needed?

Interpersonal communication is our most fundamental safety mechanism. In critical situations, it determines whether people can develop a shared understanding as the basis for an effective course of action — or whether misunderstandings, false assumptions, and unspoken tensions escalate unnoticed and potentially cause harm.

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What is SACCIA?

SACCIA summarises the communicative competencies that are demonstrably required to establish shared understanding as the basis for safe collective action. It enables people to make full use of communication’s safety-enhancing potential, illustrating how and under which conditions communication strengthens or undermines safety. Its effectiveness depends on two key prerequisites:

SACCIA as a safety competency
The necessary communicative competencies are actively applied in interpersonal interaction.
SACCIA as a safety culture
The environment enables and supports SACCIA-safe communication.

Originally developed in high-risk domains, SACCIA is now relevant wherever people must make decisions under pressure, take responsibility, or provide orientation — in teams, organisations, or societal crisis contexts.

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Where does SACCIA come from?

SACCIA emerged from decades of communication science research, including analyses of incidents and near-misses across safety-critical fields such as healthcare, emergency services, and aviation.

These analyses were guided by one central question:

Which communicative competencies are required to establish a robust shared understanding as a reliable basis for safe action in high-risk situations?

Research in these domains has shown that up to 80% of preventable adverse events are not caused by technical failure, but by shortcomings in interpersonal communication.

Since then, SACCIA competencies have been applied to additional contexts, including public crisis communication.

In increasingly complex risk environments — characterised by AI-driven misinformation and polarising narratives — communication plays a decisive role in whether institutions can remain effective in times of crisis, or whether communication deficiencies will undermine their efforts.

Explore SACCIA research

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What does “SACCIA” stand for?

SACCIA describes five core competency dimensions that determine whether communication enhances safety or increases risk.

The five SACCIA competency thresholds

Interpersonal Adaptation

To what extent have participants used communication to adapt to one another's cognitive, linguistic, and emotional needs in order to ensure mutual understanding?

Sufficiency

To what extent have participants used communication to gather, share, and integrate all relevant information from available sources, ensuring a sufficient shared information base?

Accuracy

To what extent have participants used communication to verify both the correctness of information and their shared understanding of it?

Contextualisation

To what extent have participants used communication to identify and neutralise contextual barriers to shared understanding (e.g. differing objectives, time pressure, biases, hierarchies)?

Clarity

To what extent have participants used communication to express information clearly and unambiguously, and to identify and resolve uncertainties?

Interpersonal Adaptation

To what extent have participants used communication to adapt to one another's cognitive, linguistic, and emotional needs in order to ensure mutual understanding?

Sufficiency

To what extent have participants used communication to gather, share, and integrate all relevant information from available sources, ensuring a sufficient shared information base?

Accuracy

To what extent have participants used communication to verify both the correctness of information and their shared understanding of it?

Contextualisation

To what extent have participants used communication to identify and neutralise contextual barriers to shared understanding (e.g. differing objectives, time pressure, biases, hierarchies)?

Clarity

To what extent have participants used communication to express information clearly and unambiguously, and to identify and resolve uncertainties?

These five dimensions work together. No single dimension can substitute for another. Only when all five are sufficiently practised does a robust shared understanding emerge – which in turn forms the basis for safe collective action.

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Application examples

The following examples illustrate how SACCIA-safe communication can be applied across different safety-critical contexts – ranging from operational high-risk situations to societal crisis dynamics:

Emergency medicine

Situation

A 39-year-old female patient had been admitted to the stroke unit with an acute stroke. On the morning after her admission, clinical staff conducted the handover to the day shift using the SBAR framework for structured communication. The team members held their documents and pens, took notes, made little eye contact with each other — and even less with the patient. The only greeting was a brief “Good morning.” The patient was allowed to listen, but not to speak.

As the handover progressed, the patient noticed that — as on the previous evening — incorrect information about her symptoms was being passed on. She had repeatedly pointed out that she was not experiencing “pain” in her right arm, but rather „a mild numbness of approximately 5%.“ This correction had not been documented.

During the morning handover, her symptom was described as “tingling” — the third incorrect description within twelve hours. The patient tried to politely and cautiously interrupt to correct the mistake. The physician handing over stopped her with a clear gesture, raising her hand like a traffic officer, and said, “We need to get through this information first, otherwise it gets complicated. Please hold on to your thought and share it at the end.”

Just hours after suffering an acute stroke, the patient struggled to retain even brief thoughts. There was no opportunity to write anything down. After the handover, the clinical team was in a hurry, and the patient no longer remembered what she had wanted to say. To this day, the error remains uncorrected in her medical record.

Societal polarisation

Situation

"When I mention at family gatherings that I'm in favor of open borders, my uncle throws a tantrum. When I say at climate protests that migration can also be a burden, people yell at me. At some point, I just stopped voicing my opinion."

This striking quote captures a broader reality experienced by many young people, as reflected in a large-scale survey conducted by Debating Europe. Respondents described the current state of society as toxically polarized. Many said they feel restricted in how they speak, overwhelmed emotionally, and powerless in conversations. Core issues like migration, the climate crisis, gender debates, economic inequality, and Ukraine policy often lead people to retreat into so-called opinion bubbles. A significant number reported avoiding political topics with friends altogether. Most said they only share views with like-minded people — and actively avoid disagreement out of fear of escalation, rejection, or being misunderstood.

EISC is committed to engaging with these challenges and addressing the growing threat of societal polarization. We therefore present here an exemplary application of the SACCIA competency model in this context.

Workplace bullying

Situation

Alex had started at a new school just a few months earlier. From the beginning, some of his classmates systematically excluded and threatened him. One afternoon on his way home, an older student confronted him together with a boy from his class. The older student openly threatened him: “If you insult my friend again, I’ll beat you to death!” At the same time, the classmate made an obscene gesture and sped past him provocatively.

This was just one of many distressing experiences Alex faced almost daily — from having his jacket and shoes hidden by a group of classmates to repeated serious threats. On one occasion, they even locked him in a classroom by holding the door shut so he couldn’t get out.

The school responded helplessly, claiming many of the incidents occurred off campus and were therefore not their responsibility.

The ongoing bullying took a clear toll on Alex’s mental health and academic performance. But instead of addressing the root causes or ensuring his safety, the school sent him to be formally diagnosed with ADHD — as a way of explaining his declining grades.

Rather than receiving support, Alex felt further stigmatized by the diagnostic process and was eventually placed on medical leave.

Situation

The COVID-19 pandemic placed an unprecedented and prolonged burden on societies around the world — medically, economically, socially, and psychologically. In this context, public communication about the virus became both a critical tool for crisis management and a key driver of growing social division.

Friendships fractured, families grew apart, and society split into increasingly polarized camps. The Swiss COM-COVID study, led by EISC President Prof. Dr. Annegret Hannawa, explored this phenomenon in depth.

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What does SACCIA offer?

SACCIA is an evidence-based competency and evaluation model for interpersonal communication in safety-critical contexts. It is not a communication tool or a checklist for individual situations. Instead, SACCIA defines which communicative competencies are required for communication to fulfil its safety-enhancing potential — regardless of which specific tools or formats are used.

A useful comparison: Communication tools such as SBAR or I-PASS are like instruments in a toolbox. SACCIA, by contrast, develops the ability to use these tools safely and effectively. SACCIA competencies are therefore applicable across situations and strengthen communicative safety in all high-risk contexts — whereas conventional communication tools are primarily designed for specific use cases.

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Does SACCIA apply only to high-risk domains?

Although SACCIA was originally developed from cases in high-risk contexts – where the consequences of unsafe communication are particularly visible – the underlying competencies are not limited to such environments.

Wherever people must make decisions under pressure, assume responsibility, or deal with uncertainty – whether in organisations, education, public administration, politics, or civil society – SACCIA competencies strengthen safety by enabling shared understanding and coordinated action.

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SACCIA in Action

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How do we work with SACCIA?

At the core of our work is the joint development and implementation of sustainable, safety-enhancing communication systems.

We support leaders, teams, and institutions in integrating SACCIA-safe communication practices into their existing structures. Our work is grounded in real-world safety-critical situations from everyday practice, which we address through training and in-house programmes.

Our integration approach establishes two key prerequisites:

SACCIA as a safety competency:
The necessary communicative competencies are strengthened and embedded in everyday interpersonal interaction.

At team level, we develop those SACCIA competencies required to establish a sound shared understanding in safety-critical situations and to remain operational under pressure. We work with real-life scenarios – such as critical handovers or hierarchical communication barriers – and ensure their communicative safety.

SACCIA as a safety culture:
An environment is created that enables and supports safe communication practices.

At institutional level, we support leaders and decision-makers in establishing the systemic and structural conditions that are necessary for safe communication. This includes organisation-specific training programmes and the long-term cultivation of a communicative safety culture.

As part of our non-profit mission as scientific evidence advisors, we address organisation-specific challenges in collaborative projects. The impact of these measures is evaluated using jointly defined indicators — such as as reductions in safety incidents, improved safety culture, increased trust, and better adherence.

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EISCOM Summits: SACCIA-based dialogue facilitation at institutional and societal level

In addition to training and integration formats, we apply SACCIA in high-level, interdisciplinary summits. These address questions of safety and resilience where shared understanding is required not only within teams or organisations, but across institutions, scientific disciplines, and societal actors.

EISCOM Summits consistently follow the principles of SACCIA-safe communication:

They consolidate sufficient information on current safety and resilience challenges.
They ensure accuracy and evidence-based rigour through the targeted involvement of leading scientists.
They promote clarity by systematically integrating scientific insights with practical experience in dialogue-based formats.
They are carefully contextualised to socially, institutionally, or systemically relevant questions.
They are designed to enable interpersonal adaptation, leading to viable shared solutions.

The focus is not on positioning or debate, but on dialogue-based formats that enable safe mutual understanding, from which concrete, actionable measures can be developed.

In this way, EISCOM Summits, through their SACCIA orientation, ensure that communication continues to support safety even in the context of highly complex and urgent safety and resilience challenges.

Current and future summits:

EISCOM-Summit 2025
Crisis Resilience

EISCOM-Summit 2026
Safety 360°

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SACCIA understands safety as a communicative achievement.

Why is SACCIA needed?

What is SACCIA?

Where does SACCIA come from?

What does “SACCIA” stand for?

Interpersonal Adaptation

Sufficiency

Accuracy

Contextualisation

Clarity

What does SACCIA offer?

Does SACCIA apply only to high-risk domains?

SACCIA in Action

How do we work with SACCIA?

EISCOM Summits: SACCIA-based dialogue facilitation at institutional and societal level

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