From Shared Experience to Shared Learning: What We’re Doing with Your Incident Reports

Thursday 12th March 2026, 8:41am

Ever wondered what happens after you hit “submit” on the Mountaineering Scotland incident and near-miss survey? Well, here’s the exciting part: those reports don’t just sit in a database—they’re about to help shape the future of mountain safety!

Thanks to the commitment of our members and the wider mountain community, Mountaineering Scotland now has a nationally significant collection of around 750 self-reported mountain incidents. These stories capture the real-world situations where things didn’t go quite as planned—and sometimes almost went very wrong. Your willingness to share these experiences is what makes meaningful learning possible.

We’ve reached a big milestone: this treasure trove of knowledge is now being opened up for academic analysis by the Centre for Mountain Medicine at the University of Lancashire. Their team will dive into the narrative detail of these reports to uncover patterns, contributing factors, and recurring themes. Why? Because your free-text descriptions are research gold—they tell the story behind the stats. The goal is to turn these insights into structured data that can help everyone learn and stay safer.

But that’s not all. The project also aims to run focus groups with climbers and mountaineers to explore what motivates reporting, what gets in the way, and how we can make the process better. Later in 2026, we’ll be looking for volunteers who’ve submitted reports before—so keep an eye on our website, newsletter, and socials for details.

One key outcome of this research will be a clear coding framework to track trends over time and improve future reporting. Ultimately, this collaboration is about turning shared experience into shared learning—and making our mountains safer for everyone.

Stay tuned, and thank you for being part of this journey!

Report an incident here

Background

The Mountain Incident Survey was delivered by the Mountain Safety Group for Scotland, which is lead by Mountaineering Scotland and comprises all the key mountain safety organisations working in Scotland.

The Centre for Mountain Medicine is an internationally recognised academic unit within the University of Lancashire, delivering postgraduate education including the MSc in Mountain Medicine, alongside applied research and knowledge exchange focused on safety, decision-making, and care in mountain and remote environments.

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