At the NES Conference in Finland 2006 participants form all the Nordic countries, including some European guests, spend two sessions together, and produces a set of parallel tales or chronicles of the historic development of the professional practise and regulation concerned with ergonomics and health and safety in each of the countries. The workshop was called “What is Nordic Ergonomics?”.
The result was impressing in its combination of a broad overview of trends and descriptive details revealing the importance of individuals and specific ideas. A “Nordic way” of dealing with ergonomics was documented, at the same time that is was obvious that each country had its own story. Even though 2006 is only two years back, Globalisation seems to have changed the conditions for national regulation and national concepts of providing Health Service and perform research. This is the background for the wish to once again gather ergonomists and OHS – professionals from the Nordic countries to meet, discuss and share ideas and thought of where we are heading.
The IEA definition of ergonomics is, that it “… is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.” In the Nordic countries, there are still differences, in how the term is used and understood. How the national discipline or profession of ergonomics has developed is related to the institutions in the country: Educational institutions, the legislation, the Labour inspection, the Occupational Health Services, the National Working Environment institutes, labour market relations and so forth. Numerous changes has undergone on the institutional level in this short period that will have a large effect on the field. The political closure of the Swedish Working Life Institute, The out phasing of the Danish Occupational Health Service etc. is some of the serious examples.
Therefore we call upon the ergonomists of the North to meet again, and share their stories and discuss what the future will bring, and how we can strengthen ourselves to meet the challenges.
The Goal of this double workshop is to uncover the strengths I the ergonomic practise of the Nordic countries. Together the participants will conduct an investigation of the current trends and achievements. We will discuss what will be ready to put into the museum of Nordic ergonomics and what we find can be the foundation of tomorrow’s standards, knowledge and practise.
The programme of the workshop comprises:
- Reflections from the workshop in Finland 2006 – presentation of the story lines.
- A short presentation from each of the participation countries: what is on the ergonomic agenda, who are the forefront actors are their new important trends
- A mutual brainstorm on ideas for realistic or utopian development of the Nordic ergonomic approach
- National reflections in groups: What do we think belong to the museum of ergonomics and what will we plant in a greenhouse for the future ergonomic practise
- A critical reflection from Holland on the Nordic approach seen from the outside world.
The workshop will be conducted Hans Jørgen Limborg TeamWorkingLife and Edvin Grinderslev Copenhagen Energy both from Denmark.
References:
Ruth, W. & P. Odenrick (1994): Begreppet ’ergonomi’ – vad står det för?, in Nordisk Ergonomi, no. 3/94.
Limborg, Hans Jørgen and Hans Hvenegaard: The Chronicle workshop - The use of the narratives of a group to tell the story of a work community and understand the basis of its culture. In Lauge B Rasmussen (ed.): Methods in working environment. Denmarks Technical University 2008.
The Icelandic Ergonomics Society