[Press release] Foresight for occupational safety and health

An international conference by INRS to anticipate work transformations and prevent occupational risks

Climate change, geopolitical and energy crises, the rise in automation and the use of artificial intelligence… These developments will affect work in the upcoming years, but what will be the consequences on safety and health? These are just some of the topics that will be covered during the international conference organised by INRS (French national research institute for the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases) that will be held on 14 November in Paris. The goal is to explore the possible transformations in the world of work and their impact on workers’ health and safety.

This foresight work, which aims to anticipate the possible consequences of economic and social transformations on workers’ health and safety in the near future, provides prevention bodies with food for their strategic reflections.

Organised by INRS, in partnership with its counterparts in the USA (NIOSH) and Germany (IFA), along with the European Agency for Safety & Health at Work (EU-OSHA) and the Partnership for European Research in Occupational Safety and Health (PEROSH network), the international conference to be held on 14 November hopes to promote the sharing of results from different foresight work conducted by occupational health and safety institutes and spark discussions.

It is mainly intended for OSH players: specialised experts and researchers involved in the management or governance of OSH bodies in France or abroad.
Several foresight exercises focused on occupational safety and health will be presented on this occasion and complemented by discussions about the possible uses of these results.

Foresight, a tool for anticipating occupational safety and health needs

“Just like businesses, prevention bodies are faced with the difficulties caused by the increasingly fast work transformations in a volatile world. Therefore, several of these organisations have undertaken foresight activities these last few years to inform their strategic reflections. This is the case with INRS, which has conducted many foresight exercises on different topics: physical assistance robots, platformisation, the circular economy, artificial intelligence, etc. With over ten years of hindsight into this activity, INRS has taken the initiative to bring together the reference players in this field to share their analyses and discuss their practices”, explains Stéphane Pimbert, Director-general of INRS.

Lastly, among the highlights of this conference (see programme below), there will be two roundtables with a panel of players in research (Eurofound, TNO, IWH) and governance (social partners, ILO, European Commission, etc.), on:

the value of foresight for developing research programmes,
how can social partners, governments and authorities benefit from foresight work to further OSH?

Download the press release (pdf 282 ko)

For more information:

INRS press contact

Caroline Tonini
caroline.tonini@inrs.fr
+33 1 40 44 31 64 / +33 6 34 46 06 35

Last update on 11/09/2024