Newsletter No. 0

Section 1 – News from FEES

Pieter Rookmaaker, President of FEES

I’m proud to introduce to you the first Newsletter edited by the Federation of European Ergonomics Societies / FEES.
We have received many suggestions how to improve the communication between the FEES Board or Executive and the various ergonomics societies, members of FEES.
After a good discussion at the recent Council meeting in Bruges, October 13th., all participants agreed to start with a Newsletter on a more or less regular basis with information exchange of interest for many of us.
That means specifically NOT only information from the Executive to the members, but certainly also from the members to other members and also to the Executive!
Let’s use this as a platform with interesting and useful information for many of us!
Tommaso Bellandi, the chairperson of the Communication & Promotion Committee of FEES, will explain more precisely about that platform-function!

What has been happened since we met in Bruges?
Some items of interest:

• In Brussels (on November 25th.) FEES was again recognised by OSHA as official Campaign Partner of the Healthy Workplaces Campaign on Safe Maintenance. Through this partnership FEES has entries to the OSHA network to meet many other partners at the European level and to promote facilities. FEES will also be invited to become involved in the preparation of new campaign themes. See also the enclosed picture!
• FEES is involved in completing a questionnaire for the preparation of the European Innovation Partnership / EIP on active and healthy ageing. This very interesting initiative of EU Inclusion is perfectly in line with the outcome of our October conference in Bruges about the ageing people at work! We certainly can contribute to this EIP !
• The follow up of the October conference in Bruges is for all of us a major issue. Not only the final financial results, but much more how to use the outcome of the conference in the future policy of FEES. How can we can we really contribute making steps forward with the issue of the ageing worker in Europe? Please see also the latest Preface of the FEES website.

I wish all of us a prosperous and successful 2011!

by Tommaso Bellandi, chair of the FEES Communication and Promotion Committee

It is a great pleasure to finally edit and send the first newsletter from FEES. Both the Council and the Executive of our association supported my proposal to create this kind of tool and encourage communication between FEES standing committees and the federated societies, as well as within the community of ergonomists in Europe. According to these premises, the Newsletter is organized into three sections: 1-news from FEES, 2-news from the federated societies, 3-ergonomics up to date.
Section 1 includes contributions from FEES executive members and committees; section 2 any articles from the federated societies describing the ongoing life and the national activities that otherwise go unseen because of the language barriers; section 3 collects mainly links to reviewed web resources such us announcements of international conferences, scientific papers, articles, books or websites and welcomes the individual contribution of any researcher, practitioner or student in ergonomics and human factors, yet possibly member of one federated society. For these purposes, we would like to create a network of regular correspondents of the FEES newsletter to contribute to sections 2 and 3. That is why you will find such a question at the bottom of the current section.
The FEES newsletter has the ambitious goal to foster the development of our community of practice in Europe, therefore it is naturally open to individual contributions as well as comments and interactions, in the fashion of social networks. For instance, the reader can send a post and comment each article of the newsletter and at the bottom of each section there can be some questions to have instant polls on the topics covered. In the near future, the C&P committee will also use the newsletter to plan the activities for the next European Month of Ergonomics in a participatory way.
We hope to have a three monthly delivery of the newsletter, but actually it is everyone's responsibility to make it live and grow, by sending contributions and comments, by linking it into personal and institutional websites or forwarding to colleagues and friends. It is a digital and free newsletter, therefore it comes by email with the title and extracts of the articles and then the full contents available on the FEES website in HTML format. This is hopefully a sustainable tool in a time of crisis and opportunities, information overload and climate change. The first time the newsletter is sent to the FEES Council Members, with the request to forward it to all the members of one's national society. Then any recipient will have the opportunity to receive the next numbers automatically, by answering to the email address feesnewsletter@gmail.com.
The subscription will be always free of charge.

by Kamiel Vanwonterghem – Chair of the FEES European Union Task Force

Two years of work resulted in a satisfactory conference in 10-10-10 Bruges event in October. The EUTF-ECE contacts with the FEES and non-FEES participants were encouraging for an ergonomics break-through in well-being issues. We have seen for example that the classic disciplines and methods are not able to bring some good solutions in the ageing issue or in WMSD (Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders) – the results are stagnating, or even worsening.
After the conference I have the strange feeling that there is a unique opportunity to show Europe that FEES and ergonomics has a reason to exist. BUT we have to leave the classic principles and strategy to safety and health specialists and their organizations which handle the issues through their specific approaches and their financial resources which are much larger than ours. Furthermore we should support them fully in their efforts.
However, the feed-back (retro-active) approach of the effect-cause relations which can be efficient in accidents and some diseases, is not well suited to tackle the new risks of cumulative traumata. That method has to be replaced by a SYSTEMS approach which requires an ANTICIPATING participative strategy, policy and methodology.
The real challenge for ergonomists is to introduce the human factors as the KEY-ELEMENT in our systems analysis and in the improvement proposals, BUT we have to ACT, to DO something practical and SHOWING our value and commitment in projects as offered by the EU-programmes, and their organizations.

The Bruges declaration on Ergonomics for Ageing European Workers

by Cristophe Maes, European Union Task Force

The first European Conference on Ergonomics finished with the presentation of the Bruges Declaration, that includes the conclusion of the meeting and some proposals for the contributions that Ergonomics can give to the european policies on ageing. Please read and share the Bruges Declaration at this link.

by Martin Schuette, chair of the FEES Standards and Guidelines Committee

Last year there was a meeting of KAN and the FEES Standards and Guidelines Committee. The participants agreed to a project concerning the extension of DIN EN 13861 financed by the KAN. Furthermore FEES wrote a letter to DG for Enterprise and Industry, Head of Unit “Mechanical, Electrical and Telecom Equipment” in Brussels for a meeting with the Commission about the Ergonomic aspects in relation with the Machinery Directive and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) directive. This meeting already took place in Brussels. One of the outcomes of the meeting was the presentation of FEES in 2011 in the European working group on Machinery and the European working group on PPE. Furthermore FEES will participate in the Impact Assessment for the new revision of the PPE directive.
FEES is a member of the Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) of CEN/TC 122. The SAG intended to give information about future developments regarding standardization. The SAG decided to accomplish an inquiry to get more detailed information about the needs and wishes of the customers of standards. For this purpose a questionnaire was developed. FEES was involved in this process. The questionnaire was implemented on the FEES web-site. The results of this inquiry were presented during the CEN/TC 122 plenary session this year.

New FEES member Latvia

by Dietmar Gude, chair of the website committee

We welcome the Latvian Ergonomics Society as the 21st member of FEES, based on a unanimous decision by the Council during its last meeting in Bruges.
For information about the society, please consult the FEES website (Member Societies/Latvia). Here you can also find a Powerpoint presentation about the role of ergonomics in Latvia in general as well as the targets and achievements of the society.

by Dave O'Neill, FEES secretary general

I am writing to inform you that the 2011 FEES Council meeting will be held in Oviedo (Spain) on 21 June. At this meeting there will be elections for the President, Secretary-General and Treasurer. I have to advise you that all these posts will become vacant and invite you to submit the names of candidates from your Societies who would be willing to stand for election.
This notice of election was sent to each Federated Society on 20 December, 6 months in advance of the meeting in accordance with FEES rules - see Rules / Paragraph 9. Please send me the names of your candidates, indicating which post they are standing for (more than one post is possible if order of preference is given) no later than 25 April 2011.
For more information, please either contact me or look at the FEES rules referenced above.
Further information about the FEES Council meeting will be sent to you in due course. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing from you and, considering the time of year, would like to wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

Section 2 – News from the Federated Societies

France

by Sylvain Leduc, SELF delegate in FEES Council and C&P committee member

During the EME, the presentation «Ergonomics in Safe Maintenance» was translated in French and published on the web.
By using a new channel (in addition to to the SELF's e-letter), the presentation was sent to the mailing list of Preventica (event’s organizer on prevention at work twice by year) which contains 80,000 addresses (ergonomists, preventors, work medicine, health & safety engineers…).

Hungary

by Gyula Szabó, president of the Hungarian Society of Ergonomic

The EME 2010 ppt was translated and distributed to all colleagues known to be teaching ergonomics in Hungarian universities.

Italy

by Sara Albolino, SIE secretary for international relations

The Italian Society of Ergonomics (SIE) had its triennial congress in Rome from October 27th to 29th. The Congress title was “The social value of Ergonomics”. We had around 100 scientific contributions, five workshops and an international sessions with lectures from Klaus Zink (D), Gustavo Rosal (S), Pascale Carayon (USA) and others. Find out more on the SIE congress website.
On October 28th we had also the elections of the new SIE officers and council. Francesca Tosi has been elected SIE President for the next three years. She is professor of ergonomics and design at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Florence.

Finland

by Martti Launis, delegate of the Finnish Ergonomics Society (ERY) in FEES Council, and member of the C&P Committee

In the half-annual seminar of the ERY, the EME-topic was introduced to the members. The power point presentation "Ergonomics in Safe Maintenance" was translated into Finnish and published at the ERY web site.

The Netherlands

by Reinier Hoftijzer, representative of the Dutch Ergonomic Society in the FEES Council and member of the FEES working group Standards and Guidelines (S&G) and EUTF

The Dutch society of Ergonomics has started a discussion about the future due a reduction of members over the last years. A possible way to attract new members is the change of the name of the Dutch society in extending it with “Human Factors”, as already is established in other national societies. Another possible way to get more interest, is besides the printed Magazine, the introduction of a frequent digital newsletter, to make information more and easier accessible to a larger audience. Furthermore a new activity is the organizing of meetings for senior (retired) Dutch ergonomists and gets them more involved in the Dutch society.

Section 3 - Ergonomics up to date

3rd International Conference Healthcare Ergonomics and Patient Safety (HEPS 2011), June 22-24 2011, Oviedo (Spain)

The third HEPS conference, jointly organized by IEA, AEE and SIE will focus on the challenges healthcare ergonomics faces in designing healthcare services as the co-product of the interaction between clinicians and patients. In particular, HEPS 2011 will have specific tracks dedicated to patient centred design of biomedical devices, intelligent information systems and clinical pathways for the acute and chronic conditions. Abstract submission is open until January 24th 2011, accepted papers will have ISBN and DOI and will be published by Taylor & Francis. Early birds registration before 31st March. Find out more on www.heps2011.org.

20th International Symposium on Shiftwork and Working Time, June 28 – July 1 2011, Stockholm (Sweden)

The theme of the symposium is “biological mechanisms and risk management in the 24h society” and includes state of the art topics such as “shift work and health risks”, “biological mechanisms related to work-related sleep and sleepiness problems”, “fatigue risk management”, “flexible working hours” and many other research questions related to working times. The scientific programme consists of keynote lectures, special sessions, oral presentations and poster sessions. Find out more on www.shiftwork2011.se.

The Annual Conference 2011 of the Nordic Ergonomics Society (NES), September 18-21 2011, Oulu (Finland)

Deadline for abstracts: 1st of March 2011. Find out more on www.nordicergonomics.org/NES2011.

Special Issue of the international scientific journal Quality & Safety in Healthcare: “The contribution of Ergonomics and the Human Factors”

A basic premise shared by the authors of the present supplement is that the creation of safer healthcare involves taking into account human strengths and limitations as we design and interact with open dynamic systems that comprise patients and providers, processes of care, tools and technology, the physical environment, the organisational environment and a host of external influences [...] Find out more on qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/19/Suppl_3.

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Page created 2011 - last revision 03.03.2012