Date:Nov 2017
We invite you to read these 2017 updates from Federated Societies and Networks. Future updates will be posted on the Council pages (see https://iea.cc/about/council.html).
FEDERATED SOCIETIES
Australia
Christine Aickin, Human Factors and Ergonomics Association of Australia (HFESA)
At present the HFESA has a strong focus on the organisation of the annual conference <a href=”https://www.ergonomics.org.au/conference-information” target=”_blank”>https://www.ergonomics.org.au/conference-information</a>, which is to be held in Wollongong, a regional city to the south of Sydney, from 26-29 November, 2017. This year’s theme is sustainable ergonomics. Keynote speakers include Professor Andrew Thatcher, who is the Chair of Industrial & Organisational Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Professor of Health Systems Research at the Macquarie University, Australia; and Professor Helen Hasan, Australian Health Services Research Institute (AHSRI) at the University of Wollongong, Australia. There will be a mix of lecture, workshops, and site visits and a strong focus on supporting students to be in attendance and involved. To encourage student participation, a number of bursaries are being offered for full-time students covering the conference fee. Following on from the sustainability theme, conference participants will have the opportunity to win accommodations at the multi-award-winning University of Wollongong lllawarra Flame House <a href=”http://www.illawarraflame.com.au/house.php” target=”_blank”>http://www.illawarraflame.com.au/house.php</a>, which is one of the most sustainable houses in the world. The house is located within the ‘University of Wollongong Sustainability Street’, a new sustainability precinct located immediately adjacent to the 6 Star Green Star Sustainable Buildings Research Centre at the University of Wollongong Innovation Campus. Any of you who would like to attend the conference would be warmly welcomed!
Brazil
Jose Orlando Gomes, Asociación Brasilera de Ergonomía (ABERGO)
- International Conference on Ergonomics & 1st BRICs Conference was held in Porto Alegre, September 2017 & National Congress will be held in 2018
- More than 200 certified professionals and more than 400 affiliates.
- 5 accredited ergonomics training programs and 2 in process (MBA-type).
- More than 30 M.Sc. in ergonomics
- More than 15 Ph.D. programs in ergonomics
- More than 300 research groups on ergonomics led by at least 1 Ph.D.
- The ergonomics discipline is compulsory for undergraduate courses in industrial engineering, industrial design, and architecture.
- Dr. Paulo Antonio Barros is “sub-chair” of the IEA International Development Committee
Canada
Nancy Black, Association of Canadian Ergonomists / Association Canadienne d’Ergonomie (ACE)
Membership numbers are down for ACE, continuing a trend of recent years. Currently ACE has 479 members: 383 full members; 20 affiliates, 66 students, 9 fellows and 1 honourary fellow. We are maintaining student members and, through our Student Engagement Task force, are trying to add value to student members. ACE has a new mission statement and goals which are posted on our website.
We are continuing to do regular one-hour webinars. These are free to full and student members, affiliate members pay a fee, and non-members cannot access webinars. Thanks to Andrew Thatcher and David Rempel, who have presented webinars for ACE along with ACE members. ACE is actively contributing to Canadian Standards Association norms related to ergonomics. Our association management company is leaving us this September and we are currently evaluating new companies for this role. Changes to our governance include: 1) working on the Code of Conduct cited by our bylaws that members must follow (no such document exists yet); 2) A new past-president role is added to the Executive Committee; 3) quorum requirement was reduced to 10% of voting members. The ACE website has been problematic since going live in 2016, and a Website Task Force is focusing on determining outstanding problems; Nancy would like to discuss with Federated Societies whose website is working well how to focus ACE efforts.
The Canadian College for the Certification of Professional Ergonomists (CCCPE), which is responsible for Canadian Certified Professional Ergonomists (operating separately from ACE but whose members must also be ACE members), now includes 171 full CCPE and 11 Affiliated Ergonomists (AE). CCCPE is working on the application to become accredited by IEA. CCPE recently revised their list of educational requirements and core competencies; this has reduced the minimum number of hours in focused ergonomics education and formal work-term periods in the course of their core training. These changes provide more flexibility, recognising the Canadian educational system. Changes were endorsed by CCPE members and the ACE. Continuation of Competency is part of the ongoing requirements for CCPEs.
China
Kan Zhang, Chinese Ergonomics Society (CES)
Professor Wei Zhang is going to call a meeting of executive committee of CES soon, not later than the end of this year, to discuss how to have an election for the new term of CES, he also mentioned some ideas to promote ergonomics in China and international collaborations. President Zhang is from Tshinghua University, the top university in China. He is very busy, but we have several workshops and a small conference every year. China is very big, with many parts, sectors, committees. Almost every profession that needs ergonomics has their own research bodies, teams, centers. We have two societies related to ergonomics. The Chinese Ergo Society has 400 members. To be a member you need to be at least an associate professor. The other society is an engineering psychology society with 300 people.
France
Valérie Pueyo, Societé de la Langue Francaise (SELF)
Our Society has initiated a deep reflection on research. On one hand we focus on the selection and evaluation of researchers. In France, ergonomics is recognized as a discipline and we have a PhD in Ergonomics, but the national committees that qualify young researchers when they wish to become academics are located in different fields/areas: psychology, physiology, mechanical engineering, etc. In this situation, young colleagues may encounter some difficulties because each field/area has specific criteria concerning publications, courses, activities. So, our purpose is to obtain a better recognition of our specificity. In this perspective we are actually discussing with ministers and committees, but also with reviews to enhance our productions.
On the other hand, the reflection concerns the articulation between research, qualifications, and practice. It is very important to maintain this dialogue. Work is deeply changing and at the same time, society and people are also in the midst of change. We can observe the need of others’ goals and others’ forms of projects: need to be part of sustainable development issues, multiplication of fab-labs and living-labs to make and to think differently (for example)…. These mutations require the production of new knowledge and practices.
Not without connection with this reflection, our Society supports a great initiative: the network of young practitioners in reflection. This group organizes meetings and debates concerning practice, courses, real work, projects, among beginners, researchers, consultants, ergonomists employed in big companies, national or local administrations, etc. It is very interesting because they are witnesses to changes in work. But not only this, they also address questions to the community and make proposals for development. They demonstrate great dynamism and creativity in terms of methods and models.
Finally, I would like to mention a new commission about sustainable development. And, of course, you are welcome in Toulouse for our annual congress, “Present and Future of Ergonomics” in September.
Germany
Thomas Alexander, Gesellschaft für Arbeitswissenschaft (GfA)
The Gesellschaft für Arbeitswissenschaft (GfA) supports and fosters the topic of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Germany. It addresses various topics for a healthy, safe and efficient live- and working environment by means of interdisciplinary research and design. Thomas Alexander presented the main activities during the council meeting. Prof. Klaus Bengler (Technical University Munich) followed Christopher Schlick (RWTH Aachen) as president of the GfA. Further members of the board are Prof. O. Straeter (University Kassel), Prof. B. Deml (University Karlsruhe) and Dr. M. Jaeger (IfADo). In 2017, the society organized the annual spring conference in Brugg, CH, with more than 400 attendees and presentations across the diverse domains of HFE. The society is organizing a smaller autumn conference in Chemnitz, 28-29 Sept. 2017, and the next spring conference in Frankfurt, 21-23.02.2018. In addition, members of the society were involved in many other events about the future of work and safety. Two task forces were founded: One on “Creativity and Innovation” (Prof. Bullinger, TU Chemnitz) and one for “Young Scientists” (Prof. Kluth, Straeter, Uni Kassel; Prof. Bengler, TU Munich).
India
Anindya Kumar Ganguli, President, Indian Society of Ergonomics (ISE)
The three main things we would like to highlight are:
(1) ISE regrets to record the passing of Professor Dr. Rabindra Nath Sen, mentor to many who are at
the forefront of ergonomics throughout the length and breadth of this country, founder of the Indian Society of Ergonomics, and initiator of ergonomics research and teaching institutions which form the bulk of the history of ergonomics in India.
(2) The requirement of a Code of Ethics for our members has become an issue of current importance, with many ergonomics associations adopting and publishing such a Code of Ethics for their members. Similarly, the need for a guidance document on ethical requirements for conducting research on human subjects was raised during the HWWE2015 conference in Mumbai. While many institutions have well developed ethical approval systems, there are some ergonomics researchers who are in need of guidance in this regard. We have now published a Code of Ethics for our members, and a guideline on ethics for research using human subjects. These are available on the home page of our website (http://ise.org.in/).
(3) We have started an online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal, International Journal of Humanizing Work and Work Environment (IJHWWE) for scientists, academicians, and research scholars to publish high-quality papers in the field of ergonomics, human factors, work physiology, usability, human-centred design, and related fields. Authors are invited to submit their research papers, review papers, case reports, and short communications. Details are available on the home page of our website (http://ise.org.in/).
(4) Our annual meeting HWWE’2017 in Aligarh University will be held in December 2017 (http://www.hwwe2017.com).
Indonesia/ SEANES
Yassierli, Perhimpunan Ergonomi Indonesia (PEI) or Indonesian Ergonomics Society
Currently, we have 503 members. The number has almost tripled within 2 years. Here are several of our programs:
1. Daily social media discussion through What’s App.
2. Yearly national conference and bi-annual international conference along with SEANES.
3. Three monthly free workshops for the members. We invite our members who just graduated from PhD programs to share their research for the Society.
4. National journal (2 editions per year).
5. Ergonomics student camp (a yearly 2-day program for undergraduate students at senior level). We call them young-PEI members.
6. Collaboration with the government in developing guidelines.
7. We have 7 Technical Groups. Among the active TGs are Biomechanics and MSDs.
8. Survey on anthropometry data (a collaboration effort across the country).
9. Membership card
10. Souvenirs: mug, T-shirt
11. We are preparing for establishing a certification body
Italy
Sara Albolino and Giulio Toccafondi, Italian Society of Ergonomics (SIE)
The Italian society is preparing for the IEA 2018 Congress. Promoting for patient safety in national guidelines. Two vocational masters programs in the country. Big challenge to sustain.
Japan
Kentaro Kotani and Takashi Toriizuka, Japan Ergonomics Society (JES)
The major achievement this year was that we successfully hosted the Asian Conference of Ergonomics & Design 2017. The objective was to invite as many societies and countries as possible. We set the registration fee as low as we could (200USD/4days with banquet), and especially made a lot of effort to look for potential HFE researchers, which are in non-federated IEA societies to encourage to attend the conference. As a result, we had 400 guests from 15 countries; among them140 guests were from outside Japan. Although we struggled with contacting such societies, we hopefully made contact with a delegate from Vietnam. According to her presentation, there is no ergonomics society there but there is an occupational health society. They need more communication with IEA but there is no key person to connect to ergonomics researchers in Vietnam. We need to include a strategy for communicating. Regarding the CPE part, we got some outcomes from the symposium on certification. Some societies will have a system of certification, some do not intend to do so. They want to have a limited scope of certification. Formal recognition is desired. ACED should send a clear message to IEA that there is a clear demand for certification in Asia. They may need to start with a low-quality system. We are asking ACED to develop a body that is interested in certification.
Malaysia
Shamsul Bahri Mohd Tamrin and Mohd Syafiq, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Malaysia (HFEM)
This year has been a very busy year for the society. One of our biggest achievements was to have our own online membership registration and management, as well as a newly revamped website (www.hfem.org). Currently HFEM has around 104 active members. Our sources of funding come from the membership fees as well as from the training programs. This year (2017) we have managed to secure funding from the Social Security Organization (SOCSO) of Malaysia. Several training programs have been planned for the year of 2017, and all the programs are related the promotion of human factors and ergonomics in workplaces. Finally our most notable achievements for the year of 2017 was the publication of the “Guidelines On Ergonomics Risk Assessment At Workplace 2017”, as well as the development of a manual materials handling guidelines which were developed jointly with the Department of Occupational Safety and Health in Malaysia (DOSH) as well as the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health Malaysia (NIOSH). The guidelines mark the starting point for future collaborations between HFEM and the Malaysian government in making human factors and ergonomics as part of the Malaysian legal framework.
Netherlands
Ernst Koningsveld, Human Factors NL
Things are going much better with the society after some decrease in membership over the past years. We are now back to 285 members. The society hosted a successful congress last autumn, including an international day, with speakers from CREE and FEES from all over Europe. These were very interactive days, and we had good reactions from participants. We presented the Pieter Rookmaaker Award for Public Transport and a new, more general award for recognizable contributions to the discipline (to Jan Dul, first recipient), as well as a dissertation award. For the latter, the problem was how to compare very different theses. There have been changes in our board—of 4 board members, 3 are retiring. In the spring we will have a new president and a new editor for the journal. All is going well.
New Zealand
Marion Edwin, Chair, HFES New Zealand (HFESNZ)
The HFESNZ has been active and productive. A small society with just 92 current members, we have spent the last few years focused on internal restructuring to build our capacity and effectiveness. This has seen the Professional Membership categories included in the functions of the main society (rather than via a subcommittee) by altering our Rules to ensure that professional-level activities are a key driver for society activity.
We have a new website at www.hfesnz.org.nz; and we have hired a part-time administrator to support the day-to-day running and provide secretariat services. We have held a number of engaging conferences and member meetings, and regular information goes out to members via the monthly “HFE-News.” HFESNZ is a full and active member of the recently formed Health and Safety Association of New Zealand, which is working to raise the standards and professionalism for all professions working across the health and safety sector. This will see Certified Professional Members of HFESNZ able to list on the HASANZ Register, enabling businesses from throughout New Zealand ease in identifying when HFE might be able to assist and to access our services. This is due to “go live” in early 2018.
Associated with this growth in interest in the broader health and safety sector, we have increased our Professional Member numbers by 25%, and our overall membership numbers are beginning to rise. We have also participated in providing various pieces of feedback to our primary health and safety regulator following some major legislative changes in health and safety. We are working hard to leverage off the opportunities presented as a result of this change, to bring excellent HFE to positively impact on the well-being of more New Zealanders.
Current projects include providing feedback on a draft “Health and Safety by Design” guidance document; addressing the ongoing provision of quality HFE education in New Zealand; and ensuring regular and high-quality member events. It is ‘all go’ for the kiwis, and we are positive and upbeat about the place of HFE!
Nordic Countries
Kasper Edwards, Chair of the board in Nordic Ergonomics and Human Factors Society (NES)
NES consists of the ergonomics associations in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland. There are significant differences among the 5 societies. The Danish society, a subdivision of the Danish Society of Engineers (IDA), is growing (850) and it’s very active within different fields in Denmark. This means co-operation with universities, unions, labor organizations, companies, etc. The Norwegian society is struggling, the activity is low, and the membership has dropped (20). Iceland is maintaining its members (35), is mostly occupational physiotherapist-driven, and is very active. Sweden is active in different ergonomics fields and has maintained its membership (300). The Finnish society is undergoing change and is maintaining its members (98). The society has been inactive, and changes in institutes and universities have affected the awareness of ergonomics strongly. The focus of the Finnish society is to create renewed awareness of ergonomics from health care-driven ergonomics to early-phase design ergonomics and collaboration with engineering and safety specialists in companies.
NES just held its annual and 49th conference in Lund, Sweden, with 150 participants from 18 nations representing research, practice, and students. The theme of the conference was joy at work, and, indeed, the conference was a joy and highlighted the need for including ergonomics in the early phase of design. Also, organizational structures, systems, and ways of working were highlighted as enablers for the use of ergonomics in companies.
An ongoing discussion in NES is to create value for member associations besides the annual conference. This means also shedding light on the role and focus of NES. The NES Board has elaborated on the objectives and domains of specialization. This means that we anticipate a broad definition of ergonomics to address all aspects of “man at work”; e.g., physical ergonomics, production ergonomics, cognitive ergonomics, organizational ergonomics, and environmental ergonomics. Although the 5 Nordic countries are alike, national differences and ergonomics societies differences makes direct collaboration difficult, but allow good learning opportunities for all. The NES board has decided to strengthen and support collaboration among the 5 Nordic associations by supporting development of networks. One focus will be on innovation that integrates ergonomics into daily use in many ways, fields, and levels. Another focus is to bridge the gap between science and practice. Therefore, NES has created the NES Innovation Prize to be awarded for the first time at the 50th NES Conference in 2018 in Reykjavik.
Singapore
Angela Tan, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Singapore (HFESS)
HFESS is organizing monthly talks for our members. However, the attendance has been poor and we’ve cancelled a few events. We are providing attractive discounts to our events to the local community when they take up our membership. This seems to work for our major annual event. For our 30th anniversary symposium thus year, we attracted 31 members. They are mostly HFE practitioners. The challenge would better to maintain their participation in our events. Regarding certification, we have decided that it is not economical to develop our own certification. HFESS is encouraging the local HFE professionals to apply for the certified status in BCPE or CIEHF.
South Africa
Andrew Thatcher, President of the Ergonomics Society of South Africa (ESSA)
ESSA will be holding its annual conference from 13-15 September 2017. Two workshops will be held in connection with the conference; one of HFE in healthcare and one on complex systems analysis tools for HFE. More than 200 people registered to come to the conference. The conference will also mark an elective conference for the election of a new ESSA Council. Membership is relatively stable at 60-70 members. Professional certification has now reached a stage where ESSA can perform certifications internally without the help of external certifications from CREE and Maggie Graf in particular. Many thanks to both CREE and Maggie Graf for providing the necessary support to get our certification system off the ground while ensuring international standards. ESSA are hosting the first ErgoAfrica Network conference where we will talk about developing training and support networks for the rest of Africa. Currently Tunisia and South Africa are the only Federated Societies on the African continent but there is interest from the countries. Seven African countries will be involved including South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Nigeria, Namibia, Mauritius, and Botswana.
ESSA had a successful year, planning a strategy based on the IEA’s development model. In particular, we have identified key stakeholders and a strategy for engagement with those stakeholders. One notable achievement has been the establishment of an MOU with the South African Department of Labour. The South African Department of Labour has also been instrumental in driving the process of developing ergonomics regulations for all businesses. Draft ergonomics regulations were published for public comment in January, 2017 and the feedback is currently undergoing discussion and debate by the Department of Labour’s technical committee. The regulations create both opportunities (i.e. potential enormous growth in need for ergonomics skills) and threats (the risk of fly-by-night operators practicing poor ergonomics practices and related societies who also believe they are qualified in ergonomics – occupational therapists, occupational hygienists, occupational health and safety practitioners, biokineticists, etc.).
South Korea
Sung Han and Myung Hwan Yun, Ergonomics Society of Korea (ESK)
2017 was a good year. Growth is flattening. We changed our journal language back to Korean. We had tried English, but we got a very bad citation record. Decided to move back to Korean. We successfully managed the design award for ACED. We would like to see this continue. Society is looking at buying an office, because we have enough money to buy it permanently. This year, together with ACED, it is the 20th anniversary of joint conference with JES. In Korea, we host a spring and fall conference every year. Spring in Jeiju Island. Fall conference will be at a ski resort. We would like to keep this tradition. We have a history of running a successful ergonomic design award in Korea.
Switzerland
Maggie Graf, Swiss Ergonomics Society. (Update submitted by Sandrine Corbaz and Sven Hoffman)
SwissErgo’s mission is to promote Ergonomics in Switzerland, both academically and professionally. The association is looking to assure a high level of education and competence among this profession. Actually, Switzerland is facing two main issues regarding the profession: the title of Ergonomist is not protected (even if there is an acknowledgment of the profession at a European level, from the CREE (Title of Eur. Erg); and a Master Education in Ergonomics no longer exists in the country.
For these reasons, the SwissErgo board decided to take several actions in 2017 in order to reinforce, protect, stimulate, and maybe enlarge the profession.
In September 2017, a survey was launched by SwissErgo to explore members’ needs, qualifications and professional activities. This survey asked several questions about strategies that should be implemented by the association to promote the profession not only among health specialists but also among other stakeholders (companies, public organizations, institutions, etc.). The survey results will serve to set priority actions in 2018.
SwissErgo is also reflecting about its member categories to better delimited the various competences of these professional, based on the European criteria of recognition. This appears as necessary for the profession to be recognized by the high Swiss authorities.
Finally, a new academic education system in Ergonomics, is developed by a network of high schools and universities and will be soon be implemented in Switzerland.
These accomplishments could open new paths for the profession and SwissErgo is confident about the future of Ergonomics in Switzerland!
Taiwan
Max Chang, Ergonomics Society of Taiwan (EST)
There are about 250 members in the EST and we are very well sustained. Last year, to increase our visibility, the EST helped to organize an ergonomics workshop for the Xsion International Forum in Taiwan to get more people involved in the field and to become familiar with ergonomics research and application. We have our own annual congress in March on Kinmen Island and CAES members were also invited to attend the conference to further extend collaborations. Our government approved a law in 2015 to add ergonomics into requirements at the workplace. Organizations with more than 100 workers will need to establish a prevention plan to reduce the potential injuries due to ergonomic risk factors. There is an official punishment for noncompliance. The enforcement is slow at the current stage but is expected to gradually increase as more stakeholders are aware and fully ready for new laws. Next year, the EST will hold its 25thannual meeting as well as the international conference together in Hsinchu, Taiwan on March 16-18, 2018. We warmly welcome all IEA members to attend!
United Kingdom
Claire Dickinson (2017/18 President) and Nick Gkikas, (Treasurer) – UK – Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF)
Since being awarded Chartership in 2014, our society has re-branded to become the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors. CIEHF has pursued the “Towards 2020 Strategy, that seeks growth and has a vision of a world where ergonomics and human factors is recognised, valued, and applied to the benefit of people, organisations and society. This has three themes of activities: promoting ergonomics and human factors; supporting our members; and knowledge and education.
PROMOTION – The practice of E/HF has been taken forward by CIEHF embarking on a series of white papers. The first published white paper is on Barrier management. It is about the use of bow-tie analysis and ensuring effective risk controls are in place when critically needed. We are currently consulting the community on our second white paper, which is on HFE In health and social care. This sets down the broad scope of the discipline, emphasizing it is design driven and includes a systems approach. We are underway with a second volume of case studies, Human Connection II, due to be published on the CIEHF website in Spring 2018.
MEMBERS – We have re-launched the Ergonomist magazine in 2017 by working with a professional publisher. This collaboration has reduced costs, and we have seen an improvement in quality. We have reviewed our processes for membership, resulting in the development of a competency framework that sets down the competences, skills, knowledge, and behaviors for all six grades of membership. We are in the throes of implementing training for our assessor pool with the intent of shortly going live with a streamlined process for reviewing Continuous Professional Development (CPD), short/degree courses, and membership applications.
KNOWLEDGE & EDUCATION – CIEHF celebrated 60 years of the Ergonomics journal in 2017. CIEHF, working with Design4Real People, have published guidance for design & technology for school teachers on approaches for ensuring a user-centered design, rather than an ego-centered design being advanced. We have a vibrant program of events and webinars planned throughout the year, culminating in our annual conference due to be held in April 2018 in Birmingham. In 2019 it will be our 70th birthday.
United States
Nancy Cooke, President, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES)
The HFES 2017 Annual Meeting will be held in Austin, Texas, on October 9-13, 2017 with a focus on National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/). Membership is stable at approximately 4600. Several activities proposed have been proposed to keep younger members engaged including a new web portal for mentoring students and junior faculty.
IEA NETWORKS
FEES
Sylvain LeDuc, Federation of European Ergonomics Societies (FEES)
Some very light news from Europe–see the FEES website. We are very proud of the collaboration between FEES and IEA. We have launched an online survey, a SWOT analysis that takes 5-10 minutes. 20 countries have answered. We will share with all societies in the world. For example, one main aim is the meaning of regulation. There is discussion about whether to regulate more of the ergonomics profession. In the European context, the trend is toward amore open profession with less regulation. It is not always the case that more regulation is better. We have published a practical guide to ergonomics in industrial design. Jean-Francois Thibeault held a design conference for Airbus. We are also hosting a joint conference with the Portuguese Society of Occupational Medicine.
Ergo Africa
Andrew Todd, Ergo Africa
We are the youngest of IEA Networks. This comes with its own challenges, as does the language and cultural diversity of Africa. We spend much of our time trying to break down barriers and find common ground. We have made fantastic progress, trying to work as a network. We are working with members of SELF in Africa to find common ground. The first ErgoAfrica Congress was held in Johannesburg. We have a sound program of initiatives for the improvement of HFE across the continent that is adaptable to various contexts. We go on because we must. It is very important to listen, learn, and see the successes. We are all a family and it’s exciting. We hope to have many representatives in Florence next year.
ULAERGO
Jose Orlando Gomes, La Unión Latinoamericana de Ergonomía (ULAERGO)
South America and Latin America have identified a big problem, which is that there are no Ph.D. professors in universities, which means that there is no scientific competence to train people. To overcome this, we need to shift perspective. This is why ABERGO is involved in BRICS network. ABERGO paid to have BRICs and Latin American reps come and meet. We are signing an MOU with the main universities from BRICS network. Also, it is, so important what IEA is doing with ILO. We think too narrowly and can’t think micro any more. Stakeholders need to address societal issues, not just workplace issues. All societies in Latin America need to have a strategic plan. We will have a big celebration in Buenos Aires in 2019 for Latin America and to celebrate the 60th anniversary of IEA. We want to organize something really interesting.
