IEA/Liberty Mutual Award Applications Due May 31
The award for original research that prevents work-related injuries includes a $10,000 prize, and the winning paper is to be submitted to one of 14 IEA-endorsed scientific journals.
May 31 is the deadline to apply for this year's presentation of one of the largest annual prizes for original research that prevents work-related injuries, the IEA/Liberty Mutual Award in Occupational Safety and Ergonomics. Created in 1998, the award brings a cash prize of $10,000 and is presented by the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety and the International Ergonomics Association; an international review committee selects the winner.
The 2009 prize was presented in Beijing last August to Suman Singh, Ph.D., of the College of Home Science, Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India for an investigation titled "Mitigating Occupational Health Hazards of Women Farmers through Educational and Technological Interventions." The paper discussed the educational and technological empowerment of female farmers to improve their occupational safety and work efficiency. Then-IEA President David C. Caple said the work by Singh and her colleagues "combined ergonomic design/redesign of equipment with the development and application of a training program involving participatory field-level skill training and repeated field demonstrations in the proper use of the ergonomically improved farm instruments. Further, the impact of the study is far reaching, with its direct benefit to more than 4,000 women, and potentially, to many more farm workers beyond the scope of the project."
In 2008, the IEA/Liberty Mutual Medal went to a team comprised mostly of Australians for a study of occupational health and safety in the Australian mining industry. The winning project, "Digging Deeper," had been commissioned by the New South Wales Mine Safety Advisory Council.
The authors of the winning paper are expected to submit their paper to one of these IEA-endorsed scientific journals: Accident Analysis & Prevention, Activites, Applied Ergonomics, Ergonomics, Human Factors, Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, Journal of Safety Research, Occupational Ergonomics, Safety Science, Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, or WORK.
Applications, including a separate cover letter and paper in electronic format, are to be sent to IEA Awards Committee Chair at this address: Prof. David C. Caple, David C. Caple & Associates Pty Ltd, PO Box 2135, East Ivanhoe, Victoria 3079, AUSTRALIA, phone +61-3-9499-9011, e-mail [email protected]. Applicants will be notified of the results by mid-July, and the winner will be announced Aug. 31, 2010.