Meet the speakers
Jean-Jacques Atain Kouadio is an Assistance Expert in the Working Life Department of INRS, the French Research institute for Safety and health at work. He works with the INRS teams on new physical assistance technologies (e.g. exoskeletons). He is a member of the French committee for standardization for ergonomics in AFNOR, the committee who has drawn up a standard on wearable physical support devices and robots (Reference NF X35-800). He will present a structured approach to help implement exoskeleton in companies along with some elements related to the exoskeleton adoption processes. He will also explain how these technologies impact occupational health and safety.
Jennifer Clerté works at INRS, the French Research institute for safety and health at work, and is a project manager at the Watch and foresight mission. In her presentation, she will present the prospective study conduct by the INRS in 2023 on the evolution of management methods and their possible consequences in terms of health and safety at work. With a multidisciplinary team, the Watch and Foresight unit of the institute first explored the main factors of change underway in order to imagine during a second phase company profiles from 2040 based on the method of the design fiction. The profiles of these fictitious companies and their workers were then analysed by occupational health and safety experts to identify the main challenges and potential opportunities that could emerge in the domain of prevention of professional risks.
Maurizio Curtarelli is a Senior Research Project Manager in the Prevention and Research Unit at EU-OSHA, where he is currently managing a number of research projects in the area of digitalisation of work and the workplace and its implications for OSH. Maurizio has a background in economics and social research methods and statistics and has been working in particular on topics related to the labour market, working conditions and quality of work, for national and international research institutions. His presentation will focus on the risks and the opportunities for OSH stemming from the digital transformation of work and the workplace, and how the EU strategies are dealing with them.
Bertrand Delecroix is a researcher, economist at the French National Research and Safety Institute for the Prevention of Occupational accidents and Diseases (INRS). The domains of research deals with two main topics: 1/economic evaluation of prevention, and 2/study of performance of organizations and its links with OSH. The title of his presentation will be “Waste recycling and extended producer responsibility, on opportunity to enhance occupational risks prevention”.
Karin Eufinger is the Manager Standards and Technical regulations at Centexbel/ VKC in Belgium. Her work includes involvement in various technical committees and working groups in CEN and ISO, as well as managing the Belgian national mirror committees in the textile and related sectors as Sector Operator under the NBN (national standardisation bureau in Belgium). Since 2009 she has been working on the development of standards for smart textiles and electronic textiles and how this can be extended to developing standards for innovative personal protective equipment.
Normen Günzroth is Head of Technology Services at DIN Media (formerly Beuth Verlag). He is responsible for the development of future services (SMART services for current standards and standards of the future) for the digital application of standards and the process- and demand-oriented provision of fragmented standards data in order to continue working with these customer-specific systems. These solutions, some of which are still very new, are being developed with customers at an early stage.
Jorge Iñesta is the Deputy Director for Industry and Inspection of the Autonomous Region of Madrid (DG for Economic and Industrial Promotion). He is in charge of the management and coordination of the Directorate Units responsible for market surveillance, legal metrology, inspection, industry register, technical inspection of vehicles, radioactive facilities and installers professional competency. Under his auspices, the national Spanish guide for market surveillance of industrial products was set up. Jorge Iñesta represents Spain in the Western European Legal Metrology Cooperation (WELMEC) WG5 “Metrological Supervision” and in the ADCO Group for Measuring Instruments Directive (2014/32/EU) and Non-automatic Weighing Instruments Directive (2014/31/EU).
Ruth Jiménez is a biologist and chemist currently working at the Spanish National Institute for Health and Safety at Work. She belongs to the Industrial hygiene department managing projects on chemicals, nanomaterials, exposure modelling, control banding tools, REACH and CLP. She will provide an overview of the interface REACH-OSH and the implications related to the interaction between the workers regulations and REACH.
Thomas Krügerke has worked in standardization of respiratory protective devices since 1988. He is the former chair of CEN/TC 79 and led the development of the ISO 17420 standard on respiratory protective devices. He holds a PhD in chemistry and worked as head of certification for different companies. Since 2022, he has been self-employed as a certification adviser.
Catherine Lubineau is the technical director at UNM, Union de Normalisation de la Mécanique, the French sectorial standardization office for mechanical engineering, steel and rubber industries, operating on behalf of AFNOR. She has worked in the safety of machinery sector for more than 25 years. Having been a member of the CEN-CENELEC Machinery sector for 15 years, she will concentrate her presentation on the impact of the evolution of the Machinery Regulation on standards.
Jorge Martin is a social psychologist from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). His professional career has focused on consultancy and research. Since 2020, he has been working in the psychosocial risks unit of the Machinery Verification Centre of the Spanish National Institute for Safety and Health at Work (INSST). He has specialized in the subject of digitalization, specifically in the domains of platform work, algorithmic management, and artificial intelligence. He is also part of the digital transition technical team for the implementation of the Spanish Occupational Safety and Health Strategy (2023-2027).
Tania Marcos works at UNE, the Spanish standardization institute, where she is the programme manager for the technical committees on quality, conformity assessment and, in the field of Industrial Safety, regulatory inspections and certification of persons. She is also vice-chair of the UN initiative U4SSC in support of the Sustainable Development Goals promoting safety, resilience, inclusiveness and sustainability of cities through the use of digital technologies.
Jörg Megow is Project Coordinator for Climate Action at the German Institute for Standardization (DIN). One of the tasks of the Climate Action Group at DIN, which he coordinates, is to enable technical bodies to take account of climate change mitigation, adaptation to climate change as well as circular economy in their daily work. He will speak on the topic of "Green Deal – A standardization perspective".
Małgorzata Okrasa (PhD-2012, physicist, researcher in the field of PPE) serves as the Head of the Eyes and Face Protection Laboratory at CIOP-PIB. Her engagement spans an array of safety research and environmental engineering domains, with particular emphasis on occupational exposure to hazardous airborne substances such as bioaerosols. Her work also encompasses the development and testing of personal protective equipment (PPE), ensuring their optimal design and performance relative to present hazards and specific working conditions.
Pia Perttula works as a chief researcher in the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. She is experienced in research with focus area of improving occupational safety. Her recent research projects are focused on occupational safety in supply chains. Safety management is also her main area of interest. In her presentation, she will focus on the process of widening OSH and sustainability questions from a company level to supply chains.
Claes-Mikael Ståhl has been Deputy General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) since 2021. His current responsibilities, among others, are social dialogue, trade as well as standardisation. Born south of Stockholm in 1974. His first job was as a cleaner in a factory in Sweden. Claes-Mikael Ståhl has long experience in the trade union movement, particularly working as a legal advisor for the Swedish Trade Union Confederation with collective bargaining, labour law and European law. He also worked for the ETUC as legal advisor in the fight against the Services Directive almost 20 years ago. He is the author of several publications and reports on a wide range of trade union issues from democracy to full employment, including trade union training literature.
Anna-Maria Teperi works as a Research professor at Occupational Safety in the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH). She is a member and vice chair in the Expert Panel on Sustainable Development in the Prime Minister’s office in Finland. In her presentation, she will evaluate which kind of implications the European approach to sustainability, Green Deal has on occupational safety and health (OSH). She utilizes a systemic Human Factors perspective to explore which kind of factors need to be considered at the individual, group and organizational level, to maintain resilience and adaptive capacity. At the end, she evaluates how understanding Human Factors could help us to promote sustainable development at work.
Henk Vanhoutte is Secretary General of the European Safety Federation, the representative organisation of suppliers of PPE (mainly for occupational use). He is involved in standardisation for PPE since more than 25 years. Currently he is chairing the CEN-CENELEC PPE Sector Forum and starts as chair of the recently installed CEN-CENELEC JTC 23 (Horizontal topics for Personal Protective Equipment). He also represents the PPE Sector Forum in the CEN sector forum on Occupational Health and Safety, the CEN-CENELEC Sector Forum on Security as well as in CEN-CENELEC Circular Economy Topic Group. He has a broad view on the PPE sector and the legislation and standardisation work influencing the sector.
Frank Wohnsland is the Chairman of the CEN/CENELEC Sector Forum Machinery (“Machinery Rapporteur”) and has worked on various machinery standards committees at national, European and international level in different positions. He holds a master’s degree in physics and a PhD in biophysics and started his professional career in research and development at Novartis AG in Switzerland. In 2001, he joined VDMA, the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association, as a Technical Manager. His responsibilities include standards for food processing machinery, chemical process equipment, additive manufacturing, and the EU New Legislative Framework. In 2023, he was also appointed Deputy Managing Director of the VDMA‘s Process Plant and Equipment Association.
Daniela Zavec (Titera Slovenia / ITP Germany) is a passionate clothing and textile engineer with a PhD in an interdisciplinary field of research combining textile engineering and AI. She is currently working in the field of smart textiles for various applications. Her focus is on the development of customer-oriented solutions, supporting them from idea to prototype and scale-up.
Ewa Zielińska is the president of the Polish Committee for Standardization (PKN), which is the national standards body of the Republic of Poland. She has extensive experience in international and European standardization cooperation. Since 2023 she has been the CENELEC Vice President Policy. Within the confines of her duties as president of the PKN she is responsible for organizing and conducting standardization processes in Poland and overseeing their consistency with the standardization activities carried out by the European Standardisation Organisations (CEN, CENELEC, ETSI).