WHAT IS A JUST CULTURE? The principle of a 'Just Culture' is one that the manned aviation industry has taken some years to accept as normal working practice in its day to day operations. It is at the very heart of a professional safety management system and its adoption is paying huge dividends in increasing safety standards in all aspects of manned aviation. The principle is, if an individual operates within the regulations, performs in a way that is commensurate with their training and experience and does not wilfully or negligently perform acts which cause injury, damage or death, then they should be encouraged to share their mistakes free from official sanction. These lessons are then shared across the company and ideally, industry, for collective benefit. As global regulatory authorities grapple with the challenge that unmanned aviation presents, there is an increasing focus on ensuring that we, as an industry, evolve in the same way as manned aviation (and integrate with it) but in an accelarated timescale. Whilst we do not have to learn those lessons directly over a period of time, the challenge is that the developments that manned aviation have taken 110 years to achieve will need to be implemented in as little as 3-5 years to assist in that integration process. The cultural shift required for an acceptance of the principle of Just Culture is challenging. In the UK there are now approximately 1300 companies who hold a UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Permission for Aerial Work(PfAW), the UK equivalent to a FAA 333 Exemption. They come from a wide range of sectors such as photography, survey, engineering, construction, inspection, energy, renewables, emergency services and security. Whilst many have a long established pedigree in general health & safety and risk management, most of them are new to unmanned aircraft and do not have what can be described as an 'aviation mindset’. This has been evident during the training and certification process leading to the award of the PfAW, where many students are learning for the first time about principles such as airspace, air traffic control procedures and integrating with manned aircraft in a complex environment.