First European FEES conference on ergonomics

Ergonomics in and for Europe - Quality of life: social, economic and ergonomic challenges for ageing people at work, 11-12 October 2010, Bruges, Belgium

This FEES conference, organised under the auspices of the Belgian Presidency, will address issues relating to ergonomics, economics and health that affect and will affect the quality of life of Europeans in the forthcoming decades.

Ageing will be the main thread throughout the conference, especially in terms of scientific and practical aspects in different applications:

• risks in man-machine-environment interfaces, such as transport, maintenance, emergencies,

• securing jobs and employment, paying attention to re-employment and rehabilitation,

• new forms of work and content (e.g. ICT related) especially concerning elderly people.

This 3-day conference will seek to open cooperative pathways for the three substantial partners: policy-decision-makers, ergonomic scientists and practitioners. The political statements (part 1) bring the vision of strategy-making authorities and the ergonomics scientists will bring the latest state-of-the-art knowledge about age-related problems. The practical experiences (part 2) will disclose the issues in the field and, during the discussion forums in four groups (part 3), the different opinions can be put together leading to the development of ideas for future work, for future research - Framework Programs - and a politically informed platform.

Eurofound's director, Jorma Karppinen, will speak at the conference about the Impact of activities on living conditions of elderly active people on 10 October at 12.50.

A preliminary programme is available.