Psychology applied to safety and health | Business

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Our Offer

We have expertise in the broad areas of Organisational Psychology, Human factors, and Occupational Health Psychology with more specific capabilities in the following areas:

Human factors aspects of complex systems
Workload and stress management
Risk perception
Risk decision making
Health/Safety behaviour change
Safety motivation
Proactive behaviour
Safety leadership
Safety culture and climate
Safety citizenship
Human-computer interaction

Our Expertise

The majority of our research and knowledge exchange is conducted by Dr Jim Morgan and Dr Matteo Curcuruto, however, from time to time projects draw on expertise from across the Psychology department and wider university.

Dr Jim Morgan is a member of the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (IEHF) and the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP). Dr Matteo Curcuruto is a recognised Professional Psychologist and Safety Consultant in Italy. He is a member of both the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP) and the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP).

Jim received a prestigious Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) CASE studentship grant to fund his PhD in collaboration with Eurostar UK Ltd. Matteo received a “Best Ph.D. Thesis in Organisational Psychology” award in 2011 from the Italian Association of Psychology (AIP) for his thesis entitled Proactivity and safety in HRO systems. Application of the proactive role orientation paradigm.

In 2013 Dr Curcuruto was also awarded a BASF “Extra Mile for Safety” prize for his collaborative work with the University of Bologna to develop a safety intervention for the company.

We also employ Research Associates to work within companies to ensure project deliverables are fit for purpose and to maximise academic knowledge transfer. Our current Research Associates are:

Laura Jackson (Safety Voice Project Manager at Aggregate Industries)

For some of our projects we also utilise the expertise of PhD students. Our current PhD students are:

Jill Poots (working with NHS 111 provider IC24)

our clients

We’ve worked, or are working with clients including:

Eurostar UK Ltd.
VolkerRail Ltd.
Amey
Care UK
NHS 111 (NHS England)
BASF
Aggregate Industries
IC24

Examples of previous projects

The Amey SafetySmart project was a 3-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme part funded by Innovate UK. The aim was to develop and test a behavioural safety framework using mixed psychological research methods to reduce accident risk for Amey rail workers. This project was rated as outstanding by Innovate UK.

The VolkerRail YourAIM project was a KTP project continuing an established collaboration with VolkerRail to improve employee engagement, supplement existing data, and design, implement and embed, data driven, user-centred, targeted and tailored behavioural interventions to enhance rail worker safety and reduce accident risk. This project was rated as very good by Innovate UK.

Examples of current projects

We are currently working with Aggregate Industries on a project to explore the antecedents of accident risk in transport-related operations, particularly heavy mobile plant.

what our clients say:

VolkerRail have collaborated with Jim on an evolving project over the course of several years. We are very interested in the application of psychological research methods in addition to traditional behavioural safety approaches. Our deeper knowledge of behavioural factors influencing safety for our workers has allowed us to implement system and process changes that, in combination with other safety measures, has resulted in a steady decrease in accidents and incidents and the recent achievement of a zero accident frequency rate (AFR). Our collaborative KTP initiative, the YourAIM project, is continuing to enhance our proactive safety approach with the aim of developing targeted and tailored safety interventions closely informed by psychological and behavioural data."

Stuart Spriggs HSQE Director, Volker Rail

Dr David Sheasby - medical director, care uk

"As I investigated a number of clinical incidents involving the new NHS 111 telephone service, I became aware that we faced significant challenges around complex human and systemic factors involved in the communications occurring between callers and health and clinical advisors.

I identified Jim Morgan as one of the UK’s leading experts in the field of human factors and ergonomics and sought his help to try and identify the nature and scale of the problems that we were facing. After a brief scoping visit where Jim reviewed a small number of cases in which significant adverse outcomes ond his team went on to review a representative sample of anonymised calls, analysing the interactions that were occurring between the caller and health care staff within the call centre.

The findings of the pilot study are both interesting and very useful. The study highlights a number of hidden or latent risks within the service but also suggests potential remedies or areas of further study. There are very useful insights into areas of communication breakdown with a particular recognition of the nuances of third party communications – something that is frequently an issue in health care – especially when dealing with elderly or vulnerable populations.

Further research is likely to prove very valuable in terms of offering refinements to patient contacts that will reduce and may even eliminate certain types of risk. The key point here is that the sheer volume of patient contacts that are handled by the NHS 111 service means that even small changes to protocols or pathways may have significant safety benefits if applied across the service. I am very eager to see the fruits of further research"

We would like to praise the action-research program undertaken by dr. Matteo Curcuruto in our production site located in Pontecchio, Marconi. So far, more than 300 workers have been involved in the diagnostic and intervention projects, which were eventually awarded with the international safety award of our world EV-division. Moreover, we have been delighted to present the program initiative to our European operation meeting as a new frontier for Occupational Health and Safety to be integrated with our standard programs already in place."

Tiziano Lanzarini Site Director BASF Pontecchio Marconi Plant (Italy)