The 2023-2025 European campaign “Safe and Healthy Work in the Digital Age” ended with a final event that featured INESC TEC’s participation – confirming the Institute’s commitment to the initiative’s key messages.
Common to several areas of human life, digital transformation is also redefining how, where and when we work. These changes inevitably represent opportunities but also risks for occupational safety and health. As part of the 2023-2025 European campaign “Safe and Healthy Work in the Digital Age”, the closing event took place in Lisbon and featured the participation of INESC TEC researchers Susana Rodrigues and Duarte Dias.
The event allowed the researchers to share experiences on topics like “responsible digitalisation, application of technologies to promote occupational health and safety, and risk prevention”, explained Susana Rodrigues, who also acts as manager of HR at INESC TEC. Throughout the two-year initiative, the Institute contributed as a campaign partner, by “presenting studies dedicated to the use of technology and AI for occupational health monitoring and risk prevention in the workplace.”
According to Duarte Dias, this participation “reinforces INESC TEC’s role in research and development of digital solutions that foster safer, healthier, and more sustainable work environments.” While transformation brings challenges – like intense work and algorithmic surveillance, psychosocial risks and isolation, digital ergonomics issues, new forms of job insecurity, and gaps in digital and safety skills – it also creates opportunities, with technology at the core of progress.”
As demonstrated by the many studies presented during the 2023-2025 campaign – covering topics like digital platforms, robotics, AI, teleworking, and intelligent systems – “technology can make workplaces safer and healthier by identifying and monitoring physical and psychosocial risk factors, promoting well-being, and enabling the early prevention of health issues,” added Susana Rodrigues. At the same time, it “improves operational management, optimises working conditions, and supports data-driven policies and strategies, promoting innovation in the field of occupational health.”
According to Duarte Dias, the conclusions of the event (held on 22 October) highlighted INESC TEC’s commitment to the key messages: “the importance of an integrated approach to occupational safety and health in the digital era – one that combines technical, organisational, and human dimensions -, as well as the need for ethical principles in the use of AI, worker empowerment, and the promotion of European best practices.”
The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC.
News, current topics, curiosities and so much more about INESC TEC and its community!
