In brief: Core42 and Humanitex are developing a Security Climate Scale (SCS). The programme draws on safety climate research and proposes expert review followed by organisational pilot testing. Validation results are not yet available.
Why this research matters
Audits and incident records tell only part of the story. Staff perceptions of leadership, reporting and shared responsibilities can help explain how security arrangements work in practice.
There are already resources for examining security culture, including the NPSA Security Culture Tool. This programme investigates a complementary approach to measuring security climate.
What we’re doing
The proposed development process has two stages: expert review of the constructs and questionnaire items, followed by organisational pilot testing. Pilot analysis would examine the scale’s structure, consistency and relationship with relevant security behaviours.
The methodological starting point is NOSACQ-50, a safety climate questionnaire with 50 items across seven dimensions. Its validation in safety contexts does not transfer automatically to an adapted security instrument.
The Security Climate Scale
The intended output is a tested instrument that could support organisational discussion and track change over time. Its dimensions, interpretation and suitability for different organisations depend on the research results. It is not currently offered here as a validated diagnostic or a predictor of incident risk.
Publication
Research outputs and validation findings will be shared as they become available. The programme is in development; no completed SCS validation study is linked on this page.