Fieldwork and Safety

Fieldwork is often a key component of an ESPM graduate student's research. However, we currently lack a culture of safety. In Fall 2023, the ESPM Field Safety Committee was founded to understand the needs of the community, create a list of recommendations to improve field safety in ESPM, and collate resources for faculty, staff, and grad students. The following page is aimed to help you understand how to be safe in the field as a graduate student. If you want a quick but informative summary of this information, you can access the Graduate Student FAQ document. 

Quick Links

The ESPM Field Safety Committee Website: hosts a Field Safety Plan template, redacted Field Safety Plans, the community survey on field safety in 2024, our past recommendations, the accepted recommendations, a "know your rights" document, and  department compiled readings and resources. 

The Field Operations Safety Manual: the guiding document from UC with recommendations on necessary planning steps and trainings to take before conducting any fieldwork. 

Safe & Inclusive Off-Campus Research Checklist: a checklist from UC Berkeley's EH&S providing guidance on how to create a NSF approriate field safety plan. 

A Guide to Preventing Sexual Violence and Harassment in Field Placements: provided by UC Berkeley's PATH to Care Center specifically to help graduate students prevent sexual assault, violence, and harassment. 

UC Field Safety Leadership Training Series:  UC Berkeley's EH&S provides a wealth of online trainings for field research ranging from risk assessment to DEI to mental health. They also provide training hand outs here. 

UC Berkeley Field Safety Training: UC Berkeley's EH&S offers Wliderness First Aid Training every semester. You can find details at this link. 

Planning for Safe Field Work

Planning for safe field work involves three major steps: creating a field safety plan, attending the necessary safety training, and getting access to safety gear.

1. Creating a field safety plan: On the ESPM Field Safety Website, you can find template field safety plans.  If you need assistance filling out your field safety plan, you can find filled out (redacted) field safety plans here.

Your field safety plan is a document that you create prior to conducting any field work and should be updated regularly (ex: before each field season). Ideally, you create this document with your team, and every person has the opportunity to identify hazards or risks that they have about the work. This is also important in the section of the field safety plan that acts a set of community guidelines. This document should be shared with your PI in case of emergency. 

As of Fall 2024, it is now recommended by the department that you share your field safety plan with the department as a component of your prospectus and yearly after that. Soon, there will be a form online to do this easily. In addition, Mel Baldino will be offering office hours in the Spring Semester to workshop field safety plans. 

NOTE: If you are traveling for the work or using boats, drones, ATVs, planes, or snowmobiles, UC Berkeley has specific documents and plans that you must turn in. These can be found in The Field Operations Safety Manual. 

2. Attending the necessary safety trainings: Once you have filled out your field safety plan, you should have created a list of trainings that you find relevant for your work. 

You can access some trainings online at the UC Field Safety Leadership Training Series website. Additional trainings will be listed in The Field Operations Safety Manual. Keep an eye out for UC Berkeley hosted trainings such as Wilderness First Aid or FieldFutures training on Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention. 

You can also attend field safety workshops offered by Mel Baldino of the ESPM Field Safety Committee: general grad student field safety, crew management, and identity-based risks. You can find the workshop dates and details here.

3. Getting access to safety gear: According to the Report on 2024 Field Safety Surveys, about 1/3 of the respondents pay for all of their field safety trainings and supplies personally. While this is unacceptable, it may be your reality.

When writing fellowship budgets, you should include line items for safety supplies and trainings, such as a first aid kit, satellite phone, etc. You should communicate with your advisor about getting access to grant or disgressionary funding for safety supplies. You can also ask around the community for available shared resources. 

The department is beginning to support these resources. The ESPM Field Safety Committee has applied for funding for 15 satellite communication devices for shared use by the ESPM community. The approved recommendations included allotting funding for future field safety trainings. 

Incidents and Reporting

When an incident occurs, you need to take care of any immediate danger or injury as soon as possible. Once the situation is stable, you should report the incident. 

You should follow these steps: 

1. First Aid & Initial Response

2. Seek Medical Care or Other Support

3. Report Incident to Campus

The steps for incident reporting are 

1. Report any incident to your supervisor and department 

2. Supervisors are responsible for reporting your incident to EH&S or Risk Services and complete the incident report forms

3. Discuss improvements to safety plan to avoid future incidents

Even though your supervisor is responsible for reporting the incident to the university, it is a good idea to keep incident reports in your field kit just to make sure you gather all important information. 

Learning from Incidents and Near-Misses

When you are safe and out of danger of an incident or near-miss, it is important to talk about why it happened, whether it was aviodable, and how to update your safety plan to avoid dangers like this in the future. You should allow all members of the team to participate in this discussion. 

Creating a Culture of Safety

Faculty that prioritize safety frequently in conversations with their lab, while planning field work and after the work has been completed, create an environment where students learn to prioritize safety and feel comfortable reporting when things go wrong in the field. We hope that with our current work we can encourage faculty to create safe lab environments, which in turn will encourage field safety to be valued throughout the community. Be vocal with faculty mentors about field safety being a priority to you and suggest a meeting to fill out a field safety plan together. 

Graduate students can work to create a safe departmental culture through being vocal about safety in your work and classrooms. Always speak up if you feel unsafe. Be clear with your students throughout the semester that safety is priority. Use field safety plans in your research and classrooms. Provide many opportunities for your crew or students to provide feedback on the plans. Plan to discuss safety and comfort throughout your projects, whether after near-miss and injury reports or as a simple daily rose-bud-thorn activity. Talk to your lab mates and classmates about the lack of field safety we experience currently. Share resources with them about how to be safe, including the documents and training we have shared here.

What if my advisor doesn't seem concerned about field safety? 

If your advisor doesn’t seem concerned about field safety, you should first have a discussion with them about your interest in field safety in your work. If they do not want to support this interest, then there are a few other ways to get guidance and create a culture of safety in your lab. 

1. You can plan a lab meeting where you read and discuss a paper about field safety (such as Safe fieldwork strategies for at-risk individuals, their supervisors and institutions). Having thoughtful discussions as a group may illuminate the need for field safety in your work. 

2. If you have a guiding, qualifying exam, or dissertation committee set up, approach the members about your desire for guidance and support in field safety. They may be more receptive than your advisor. 

3. If you are dissatisfied with your advisor’s response, you can approach the HGA. Due to the new department recommendations that were accepted in Fall 2024, advisors are expected to support students with field safety and plan to be safe in their own work. The HGA or ESPM council may be able to facilitate a discussion between you and your advisor to get the support you desire. 

4. If you are unsure about your next steps, you can always email the members of the ESPM Field Safety Committee. We are happy to help you navigate this challenge and support you in any way we can. 

Field Safety Recommendations (Accepted by ESPM in Fall 2024)

In Spring 2024, the ESPM Field Safety Committee presented a list of departmental recommendations to the faculty and leadership of the department. You can find that here. This was voted against. In Fall 2024, we met with faculty members to address key concerns and rewrite a smaller, more actionable set of recommendations. You can find these updated recommendations here. This was successfully approved in late Fall 2024 and will begin to be implemented in 2025. 

In summary, the approved recommendations include the following changes that directly relate to graduate students: 

• Graduate student prospectuses and annual review forms will now include a question about whether you conduct fieldwork. It is recommended that prospectuses include field safety plans if fieldwork is conducted. 

• ESPM 201A and 375 will now include at least one session on field safety. 

• The ESPM Field Safety Committee will create and share a checklist of best practices for teaching classes with a field component.

• The ESPM Field Safety Committee will share the “know your rights” document with incoming graduate students and post a flyer version in Mulford.

The departmental changes include: 

• The department will commit funds to pay for in-person safety training yearly. 

• The department will obtain satellite communication devices for shared use. 

• The department will address field safety in promotion letters for faculty. 

• The instruction chair will keep an updated list of which courses contain a fieldwork component. The department manager will keep a list of faculty conducting fieldwork. 

• The department manager will request field safety plans yearly from faculty conducting fieldwork or teaching courses with fieldwork components. 

• Incoming faculty will have onboarding training specifically explaining field safety and available resources. 

• The department will advocate for hiring a Travel Security Manager. 

We recommend reading the document in its entirety if you are interested in the timeline for implementation, justification, or legal considerations that went into these recommendations. 

ESPM Field Safety Committee

We are a committee of graduate students, staff, and faculty members (at least one from each division) that works to make ESPM field work safer. In 2024-2025, the members are: Mel Baldino (student), Benjamin Wong Blonder (faculty, committee chair), Raphaela Elise Floreani Buzbee (student), Ameen Lotfi (student), Nicole Lowy (staff), Alastair Iles (faculty), Sophie Ruehr (student), and Kristen Shive (faculty). 

We have taken on a variety of tasks to create a culture of safety and provide resources that make being safe easier. 

Spring 2024 

• We created a set of departmental recommendations for ESPM.

• We created a field safety plan template.  

• We collected and redacted example field safety plans. 

• We surveyed over 400 faculty, staff, and students about field safety to create our Report on 2024 Field Safety Surveys. 

• We created a website to collect and host field safety resources. 

Fall 2024

• We revised the departmental recommendations, and they were approved. 

• We created a “best practices in teaching with fieldwork” document to share with faculty and GSIs. 

• We applied for the Be Smart About Safety grant that would fund 15 satellite communication devices for use by the ESPM community and safety trainings. 

• We created a “know your rights” document for graduate students. 

• We created a faculty FAQ regarding the new departmental recommendations. 

Spring 2025

• We created a graduate student FAQ (this document) regarding the new departmental recommendations and field safety in general. 

• We are hosting a town hall to educate faculty, staff, and students on the new recommendations and our current work. 

• We are offering three graduate student specific field safety workshops led by Mel Baldino: general safety, crew member management, and identity-based risks.

• We are working with the instructors of ESPM 201A to create field safety curriculum. 

How to Get More Involved

The ESPM Field Safety Committee looks for new members yearly. We especially are looking for graduate student representatives from S&E, as we have not received interest yet but we need to ensure our resources are helpful to the S&E community as well. We will send out an email in Spring looking for potential new additions to the committee. 

This page was created by Mel Baldino. It was last updated on January 22nd, 2025. For questions on anything field safety, email melbaldino@berkeley.edu