The Human Element Working Group (HEWG) is an IMarEST Special Interest Group.

The HEWG’s mission is to improve safety and operational efficiency and reduce the risk of operational incident by educating and informing IMarEST members and all of the maritime community of the significance of the human element in all aspects of marine engineering science and technology.

What is the Human Element?

A simple definition is ‘anything that influences the interaction between a human and any other human, system or machine aboard ship.’ A longer definition can be found in the IMO’s principles, vision and goals.

We tend to think of it simply as ‘what’s behind human error?’ When the cause of an incident or accident is identified as human error it is often just the beginning of the investigation. Behind that error are a range of individual organisational and technical factors that, if analysed, can improve safety and operational efficiency.

What does the HEWG do?

Inform

The HEWG informs Instutite members through papers, articles, presentations, IMarEST TV recordings and discussions on NEXUS. The HEWG also maintains its website for both members and the public.

Learn

The HEWG aims to improve the knowledge available and to develop more original thoughts on the human element and, particularly how it relates to IMarEST. Much of this work is done through the ‘focus areas’. As members, if you want to become involved in these focus areas then please contact the Chair or or the IMarEST technical team.

Influence

The HEWG are involved in discussions with IMO, the UK government and other NGO’s on the human element and have the opportunity to influence the industry. Current Issues that IMarEST are involved with can be found here.

Promotion

The HEWG is also tasked with promoting the IMarEST as a learned society, through wider engagement and public outreach activities.

How is the HEWG organised?

More details on how the HEWG operates and is organised can be found here.

How do I join the HEWG?

The correspondence group receives updates from HEWG meetings. To join the correspondence group follow the instructions on the right hand side of the page.

The HEWG SIG NEXUS group is a discussion group where members can share their views. To join follow the instructions on the right had side of the page.

The HEWG website

The HEWG website has been created by its members. It is a collaborative tool and members of the HEWG are encouraged to contribute (by email to Chairman). As with any website it is only as good as its contributors. The website provides links to documents and websites on specific subjects as well as original content from the HEWG. More information about the website can be found here.

 Latest news