Overview
Research and development continue to play an integral role in keeping workers safe and healthy as the industry adapts to ever-changing technology, work practices, health trends and environmental concerns. The Coal Services Health & Safety Trust supports the Australian coal mining industry by funding projects and research that will have a positive effect on the health and safety of coal mine workers, operators and the wider mining community.
The Trust is supportive of grant applications for projects that will help in transitioning evidence to practice, demonstrate innovation, drive outcomes that benefit the coal industry, involve evidence and evaluation, and include methods and approaches that can be scaled up.
We are committed to supporting applicants to plan, implement, learn and iterate their ideas and designs into action so they can share their insights, learnings and approaches with the broader coal mining community.
Strategic priorities
Our strategic approach for the years 2023-2025 is to fund projects that address significant medical and other issues that affect the health and safety of coal industry workers and local communities. Our priorities include:
- illnesses caused by dust and other airborne contaminants
- mental health
- obesity
- musculoskeletal injuries
- serious injury causal factors
- fatigue
We will also accept and consider grant applications that address other significant health and safety issues in the coal industry if the proposal makes a strong case for their importance.
Grant program objectives
The objectives of the Trust Grant Program are to fund projects that address one or more of the following objectives (which present as opportunities or challenges within the coal industry):
- Fostering cultures that values safe and healthy staff retention, addressing concerns such as complacency, disengagement, and presenteeism
- Analysing system and job design factors, such as shift schedules, sleep patterns, and job rotation (rostering)
- Balancing mine production with worker wellbeing, including exploring the tensions that can arise between the two
- Increasing industry-wide education and awareness, targeting workers at all levels of the organisation and focusing on cultural shifts
- Expanding our horizons by seeking insights and best practices from other industries, investing in industry-wide activities, and confronting issues that challenge our business values
- Supporting peripheral businesses and contractors by sharing knowledge and providing assistance
- Applying High-Reliability Organisation (HRO) principles that emphasize behaviour, values, controls, and organisational factors that impact outcomes
- Conducting root cause analyses to gain an understanding of how current work practices can unintentionally affect worker’s health, especially in the aforementioned areas
- Facilitating leadership and management development to ensure the successful implementation of health and safety strategies
Trustees
As outlined within the Trust Deed, the Trust must have a minimum of three Trustees and a maximum of six Trustees.
The current Trustees are:
- Shane Thompson (Chairperson / Mining & Energy Union)
- Andrew Davey (Mining & Energy Union)
- Kylie Ah Wong (NSW Minerals Council)
- Frank Fulham (NSW Minerals Council)
- Lucy Flemming (Managing Director/CEO, Coal Services)
- Jodi Goodall (Independent Trustee)
The background and experience of the individual Trustees ensure that research that the Trust funds, projects and initiatives in which it becomes involved are relevant to the Australian coal industry. The Trust subcontracts the management of its projects to Coal Services.
Research projects
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