Background
The TC was created during the IEA council meeting held in Funchal in 2005, on the proposal of SELF. Interest in activity theories, which was long restricted to a small circle of specialists, has spread to ergonomics over the 90’s. And in August 2000, the International Ergonomics Association Council adopted an official definition, asserting that “ergonomics is a systems-oriented discipline which now extends across all aspects of human activity”. Accordingly, the TC ATWAD is centered on epistemological and methodological aspects of ergonomics research and practices interested by approaches centered on activity at work.
Objectives
The objectives of the TC are twofold. On the one hand to support and to promote research and practitioner communities interested by activity centered approaches in ergonomics during IEA triennial Congresses. The concept of activity is understood as individual and collective human conducts at work, knowing that several theoretical and empirical research living movements concerned with activity have grown in parallel, sometimes over several decades. On the second hand, the aim is to document and to disseminate advances in theories and methods based on these approaches for work analysis and for design of work systems.
Activities
The activity of the TC ATWAD is to contribute to the scientific and technical advances of the triennial Congress of the IEA, focusing on activity centered approaches. ATWAD is then understood as an open and inclusive living network of ergonomics researchers and practitioners, who meet during IEA congresses for discussing and sharing their scientific and technical advances (including in cooperation with other TCs). Consequently, the TC does not have any procedure for becoming a “member”, and do not seek for the moment to organize events outside of IEA congresses.
Officers
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Chair (until September 2024) Dr. Pascal Béguin Full Professor Institute for work studies of Lyon Université Lumière Lyon 2, FranceEmail: [email protected] |
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Chair (until September 2024) Dr. Francisco Castro Moura DuarteProfessorProgramma de Engenharia de Produção Cidade Universitaria – Centro de Tecnologia UFRJ – Sala G209 Ilha do Fundão 21945-972 – Rio de Janeiro Postal 68507 Email: [email protected] |
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Co-Chair Dr. Valérie Pueyo Full Professor UMR 5600, LabEX Intelligence des mondes Ubain. Université de Lyon (France) Member of the board of SELF (past Vice- President of international affairs). Email: [email protected] |
Reports on past activities
For IEA’21 held in Vancouver, more than 110 researchers and practitioners contributed to 48 communications carried out during ATWAD sessions, most of them in one of the 7 symposia organized by the TC. Namely: “industry of the future”, “integration of automation and human activity”, “promotion of equity”, “operations integrated with remote operations”, “from the company to the territories”, “future of work” and “new frontiers of work, new methods” (two of these symposia having been co-organized with the TC HFSD and ODAM). Additionally, a collection of articles from one of the symposia was published in the journal Work (see 10.3233/WOR-236021).
Previous events
2015 Annual Report Activity Theories for Work Analysis and Design
2007-2008 ATWAD Report
Activity 2008, “Activity analyses for developing work”. 12-14 May, 2008: Helsinki, Finland
This second event was organized jointly with the Finnish research community (from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, University of Helsinki Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, and Verve), which plays a major role in the development and the dissemination of activity approach. There were 80 presentations centered on the following sub-themes.
- Interventions and intervention methodologies in developing work
- The concepts ‘work’ and ‘activity’ in ergonomic research
- Activity approaches in riish analysis and management
- New activity-driven design concepts
1st Symposium ATWAD, IEA 2006, Maastricht, Co-Chairs: L. Norros, C. Owen, M. Neboit
The aim of this first symposium was to better identify the activity-oriented approaches in ergonomics. The two best papers were published in the French open-access journal @ctivites (Vol. 4, no 1 & 2). For more information, see: http://www.activites.org