Towards a Feasible New Economy 

of Innovative and Healthy Work

Bordeaux,

April 28^th, 2016 (Experts day - closed)

April 29^th, 2016 (Stakeholders day - registration needed before the 26th of April)

COMPTRASEC holds an international and interdisciplinary Conference whose central objective is discussion of the developments in the economy in terms of innovation and protection of health. The goal is to give an approach and a more specific and concrete structure in this area that could be used in the future within the scientific community and the actors of the economy. To reach this objective, four main themes will be addressed, and then the linkages between them are all explored:

Theme 1: Youth, Work and Smart Employment Dynamics;

Theme 2: Aging Workforce, Work Stress Social Costs, and Healthy Work Re-design;

Theme 3: A Micro-focus: Managing Companies in an Economy of Innovation and Health;

Theme 4: A Macro-focus: Political Economy of Innovation and Health, New Institutions, and Value Transitions.

In an interdisciplinary manner, the Conference will address issues of social environmental risks that force us to look beyond our material-based market economy – with its rapid increase of economic inequalities that undermine social protection systems and its threats to global climate – and then explore understanding of new the economic benefits that could come from alternative social organizations for work and economy.  A direct new focus on the joint Productivity and Health consequences of the social organization of work and economy encourage us to addresses new areas of benefits and costs: to workers, to customers, to organizations, and to society as a whole. The Conference will conclude with a proposal for a renewed definition of “New Economy” to build bridges to reduce the gap between different economic logics, to understand the links between work organization and psychosocial disorders.

The conference will involve leading international experts from various fields, stakeholders in occupational health and in management and Professor Robert Karasek, father of the work-related stress assessment model Job Demand / Control and major figure in the scientific world and research on health and work. Created in 1979, the “Karasek model” is the model primarily used worldwide for over 30 years in stress, mental health at work and work organization in both the scientific work and the actions of identification and prevention carried out by the actors of the health and safety at work. For this conference, that model is substantially expanded and generalized. This collaboration is a great opportunity and a chance to show the ability of social sciences to organize a such important scientific event.