Management of health, safety and wellbeing in the construction industry

Summary

Health, safety and wellbeing (HS&W) of workers are some of the important issues in the construction industry today and their importance can be expected to persist into the future. Management of HS&W in the construction industry involves addressing factors that pertain to the environment within which work is done, organisations involved in the delivery of projects and individuals involved in the delivery of the project activities. Different countries and sectors of the construction industry address the factors differently. Different countries and sectors of the construction industry also score differently on HS&W performance measures. Across countries, the differences may be explained by differences in HS&W management systems while at national level, the differences may be explained by differences in sectoral responses to prevailing HS&W management systems. Of course there may be other explanations for the differences.

Researchers in this project will be seeking to address a combination of two or more of the following: evaluating HS&W management systems, developing improvements to HS&W management systems, developing tools to improve HS&W performance and investigating relationships between HS&W performance measures and other performance measures (at project, organisational and/or national levels).

Applicants to research degree programmes should normally have at least a first class or an upper second class British Bachelors Honours degree (or equivalent) in an appropriate discipline. The criteria for entry for some research degrees may be higher, for example, several faculties, also require a Masters degree. Applicants are advised to check with the relevant School prior to making an application. Applicants who are uncertain about the requirements for a particular research degree are advised to contact the School or Graduate School prior to making an application.

The minimum English language entry requirement for research postgraduate research study is an IELTS of 6.0 overall with at least 5.5 in each component (reading, writing, listening and speaking) or equivalent. The test must be dated within two years of the start date of the course in order to be valid. Some schools and faculties have a higher requirement.