Rawing on numerous sources, including intensive consultations with its partners, the Scientific Division developed the Five-Year Scientific and Technical Production Plan hat would guide the IRSST’s projects and activities for the years 2013‒2017. This document ensured continuity with the main orientations defined in the preceding three-year plans, specifically, the 2009‒2011 Three-Year Scientific and Technical Production Plan and the Plan triennal pour une recherche porteuse de changements 2006-2008 (2006-2008 three-year plan for research generating change).

A chemist at the IRSST, Daniel Drolet, received the Edward J. Baier Technical Achievement Award from the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA). Becoming the first Canadian recipient of this prestigious award. It is given to the individual or group that has made the most significant contribution to industrial hygiene in recent years.

Researchers Alireza Pazooki (Concordia University), Dongpu Cao (University of Waterloo), Subhash Rakheja (Concordia University) et Paul-Émile Boileau of the IRSST earned the Arch T. Colwell Merit Award for an article deriving from the study of the dynamic response of a torsio-elastic suspension system for use in off-road vehicles. Handed out by SAE international, this award recognizes the outstanding merit of the authors of a scientific article having contributed to advancements in knowledge of mobility engineering.

Exposition des travailleurs québécois aux substances cancérogènes

The IRSST published the first portrait of Québec workers’ exposure to carcinogenic substances. It identified the 10 substances or conditions to which the greatest numbers of Québec workers are exposed: solar radiation (6.6%), regular night work or rotating shifts including night work (6%), diesel exhaust (4.4%), wood dust (2.9%), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (excluding diesel exhaust) (2%), benzene (1.7%), silica (1.5%), lead (1.3%), artificial ultraviolet rays (1.1%) and mineral oils (1%).

Entente de service professionnel

The IRSST signed a professional services agreement with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC). o provide an industrial hygiene equipment calibration and laboratory analysis service within HRSDC’s Labour Program.

SIAS, thirteen years later…

Meetings of the Sheffield and Perosh groups

he IRSST hosted meetings of both the Sheffield and Perosh groups. Twenty participants, representing 14 scientific institutes from around the globe, held discussions aimed at optimizing cooperation and the coordination of their research initiatives in occupational health and safety.

A technical committee of the International Organization for Standardization meets at the IRSST (ISO TC 199)

Around fifty delegates from various countries took part in the 16th plenary of the ISO TC 199 Technical Committee on Safety of Machinery, which this year was hosted by the IRSST.

2012 institutional colloquium

The theme of the 2012 colloquium was : L’importance de considérer le genre et le sexe en SST (the importance of taking worker gender and sex into account in research) and Its objective was to highlight the sex- and gender-based differences in OHS problems, as well as the implications of these differencesin terms of prevention and return to work.