What happened?
Wondering what it was all about? The programme included talks, posters and keynotes that represented a whole host of sectors from aviation to sport and domains from design to technology. Our Masterclasses focused on providing quality CPD. And our downtime featured an indoor barbeque, a drinks reception and a glittering dinner.
EHF2026 Registration
EHF2026 Russell Porter
EHF2026 audience
EHF2026 Posters
EHF2026 Skeleton athlete Amelia Coltman
EHF2026 Fiona Earle
EHF2026 Masterclass
EHF2026 Marie Ward
EHF2026 Bob Stone
EHF2026 Laird Evans
Thanks to our sponsors
Our amazing keynotes
Click on their photo for more details.
Russell Porter
INSTITUTE LECTURE
Russell Porter, Head of Future Flight Engagement at NATS
Russell leads NATS' relationships across emerging aviation sectors including Uncrewed Aircraft Systems, ‘Drones’, and Advanced Air Mobility, ‘Air Taxis’. Chair to industry groups focused on the future of flight, Russell’s work brings industry and government together to shape all-important policy and enable the safe integration of new categories of flight within the UK.
More familiar with asking the questions, Russell is host of NATS Altitude webcast, interviewing the world’s aviation industry leaders. In his Lecture, Russell will talk about the future of flight, what it might mean for us as passengers, as designers and as human factors experts. The aviation industry is changing fast, and Russell is well placed to provide insights into that world. He’ll talk about increasing demand, competing pressures, new technologies and changing roles for us humans.
Having spent the bulk of his career working in the human factors of Cockpit Design and later, Air Traffic Control, Russell also hopes to share the most important skills he learned, explaining how he continues to use them today.
Russell will be giving his lecture on Monday 27 April.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/russellsporter
Lucy Easthope
KEYNOTE
Lucy Easthope, Professor in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the University of Bath
Lucy is a leading UK expert on emergency planning and disaster recovery. Since 2001, she has served as a tactical adviser to UK disaster responders, working on major crises such as the 2004 tsunami, 9/11, the Salisbury poisonings, Grenfell, the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Her research and practice focuses on mass fatalities planning, legal aspects of emergencies, lessons learned after major incidents, public inquiry effectiveness, interoperability and community resilience. She challenges traditional thinking about how we recover from tragedy and how best to prepare for what comes next. Lucy is Professor in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the University of Bath, researcher at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research and Co-Founder of the After Disaster Network at the University of Durham.
On Tuesday 28 April, Lucy will be having a fireside chat in front of a full audience, with Professor Paul Salmon.
- X:
- LucyGoBag
Fiona Earle
BROADBENT LECTURE
Fiona Earle, Professor of Psychology at the University of Hull
Fiona has over 25 years’ experience of Human Factors and Occupational Psychology, working within the complementary settings of academia and industry. She's a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and the founder of the Centre for Human Factors.
Her interests are broadly based in the areas of work-place stress and fatigue, and her focus has primarily been on applying research to real-world settings. Specific areas of interest include evaluating context-specific stress risks and exploring their relationship to mental health, understanding mental and physical workload and their relationship to fatigue, complex task performance and performance breakdown under stress, and the impact of shiftwork on performance and well-being.
She's worked with clients across a broad range of sectors, including the energy sector, local government, NHS and emergency services.
Fiona will be giving her lecture on Wednesday 29 April.
Natalie Dunman & Amelia Coltman
KEYNOTE
Human performance in British bobsleigh & skeleton competition
Fresh from the brilliant performance of Team GB's bobsleigh and skeleton athletes at the Winter Olympics, we're thrilled to have a fireside chat with Natalie Dunman, Performance Director at the British Bobsleigh & Skeleton Association and Amelia Coltman, elite skeleton athlete, led by Paul Davison, PPWD Consulting.
The discussion will include:
- The human fit with equipment, cold constraints, training load and injury management.
- Dynamics of relationships with coaches, teammates, competitors and performance leaders.
- Psychology of cognitive load, pressure, stress, confidence and identity.
Six great Masterclasses
Two-hour CPD opportunities led by experts. Learn the tools and techniques that will enhance your knowledge and skills. Click on each tile for more details.
Work Domain Analysis
About the Masterclass
Work Domain Analysis (WDA) is the first phase of the well-established human factors Cognitive Work Analysis framework. As a standalone method, it's a powerful approach for the modelling of all kinds of complex sociotechnical systems for the purposes of evaluation and / or system re-design. This workshop will take attendees through an eight-step methodology for developing a WDA model. You'll be provided with software to support the development of WDA models and will leave with the skills to explore the boundaries and interdependencies of any complex system. You'll gain practical experience in applying WDA to build system models across a range of contexts and you'll get insights into how these models can be used in system evaluation and system re-design.
Scheduled for Monday morning.
About the facilitators
Chris Baber is Chair of Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing at the University of Birmingham. His research concerns human interaction with technology – specifically, in terms of human people form teams with intelligent technology, and in terms of sensor-based human-technology interaction.
Rich McIlroy is a Lecturer in Sustainable Transport at the University of Southampton. His research interests are in systems thinking in transport safety and sustainability, transport equity in the context of smart mobility systems and sociotechnical approaches to system safety.
Workspace Design
About the Masterclass
Socio-technical systems analysis considers the relationship between people, cultures, organisations and technology. For some time engineering approaches have included people-related factors, however, an increasing use of distributed, ubiquitous and intelligent technology challenges traditional approaches. For workspace design there will be myriad of shaping factors that impact physical and cognitive demand. We need to understand and incorporate these factors to provide for safety, performance and wellbeing given that modern environments are inherently changeable and form part of distributed socio-technical systems.
In this Masterclass, we consider how we balance various approaches. Part of this involves recognising the impact of new technology on the design process. On one hand, formal and computation approaches can be worth the investment given the need for constant and rapid re-evaluation. Structured approaches support decision quality through drill down and trade-off analysis. On the other hand semi-formal / semi-structured methods such as table top evaluations deliver insight and amalgamation of perspective but aren't always generalisable and may not scale easily. This Masterclass will compare and contrast alternative approaches.
The benefit of selecting the right tool is the cost of change can be reduced, timelines accelerated and decision quality facilitated. With the right approach a workspace solution can be developed over time at varying levels of fidelity and maturity. When parts of the overall solution change, the solution can be re-evaluated quickly and ongoing assurance can be provided. This forms part of a new approach to human factors practice - one that is inherently distributed, integrative and pervasive.
Scheduled for Monday morning.
About the facilitator
Chris Vincent manages Human Factors Integration within the BAE Systems Submarines business. He has been working in human factors and ergonomics since 2003. He is a RSA and CIEHF Fellow.
Human Reliability Analysis
About the Masterclass
In this Masterclass, you’ll explore what human error and human failure really mean - and what they don’t. You’ll see clearly what Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) can achieve, where its limits lie, and how different methods compare. You'll be walked through the process of carrying out HRA within a risk assessment project, tackling the methodological and project challenges that arise along the way.
You’ll gain practical insight into the benefits and difficulties of applying HRA, especially the need to recognise and manage uncertainty. You'll look at how HRA connects with wider project processes, the competencies you’ll need to succeed, and the tricky issues of Human-Computer Interaction and human dependence.
By the end, you’ll not only understand the tools and approaches of HRA but also what it takes to be a confident, competent analyst in this demanding field.
Scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
About the facilitator
Ned joined the nuclear sector in 1986 shortly after the Chernobyl nuclear accident occurred and was immediately involved in international collaborative research work about the usability and validity of HRA methods applied to nuclear risk assessment. He then spent about 6 years working on the Sizewell B nuclear power station project mainly on qualitative human factors in design but always within the context of their relationship to human reliability risk assessment, safety cases and regulatory scrutiny. Since that time he has used that experience to develop and peer review safety cases involving qualitative human factors and quantified human reliability. This has been on UK military projects in the UK and in the UK and internationally on civilian projects. This has mainly been focused on the nuclear sector but he has also applied his experience to rail, road, pharmaceutical and chemical applications.
Ned has undertaken developmental research on HRA including: extending the scope of applicability for an existing HRA technique, computerising a technique, developing a method for identifying risk-relevant and then assessing errors of commission in a nuclear context. He has published on difficult HRA topics including human interaction with protection systems, computer-based user interfaces and error co-dependencies and violations. He has delivered training on the use HRA methods and on human factors in complex engineered systems since 1987.
Physical Ergonomics
About the Masterclass
You will learn about various aspects of HSE's approach to musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) risk management including when to assess, which tools to use (focusing on HSE tools), HSE's regulatory activities and focus, followed by discussion on risk reduction.
Scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
About the facilitator
Matt Birtles is a Principal Ergonomist in HSE's Science Division who has focused on the development and application of workplace MSD risk assessments and risk reductions in HSE for 20+ years. As part of this, he has developed and delivers training courses on workplace MSD risk management, leads HSE's ergonomics consultancy services, supports HSE MSD Policy and has provided ergonomics guidance in most industrial sectors in the UK and internationally.
Human Supervisory Control
About the Masterclass
Contrary to the expectations of many of those responsible for investment or procurement decisions, rather than removing the need for people in a system, the introduction of automation nearly always changes the role and responsibilities of the people that remain. Introducing automation to control activities performed in real-time can remove the need for people to act as manual controllers. It always, however, introduces the requirement for people to fill the role of supervisory controllers of the automation. That is as true in the domains of healthcare, finance, domestic appliances and even professional sport, as it is in defence, manufacturing, energy, space exploration as well as road, rail, air and sea transportation. The psychological demands on people expected to fill the role of human supervisory controllers can be significant and challenging. Those demands, and what is needed to satisfy them effectively, are however rarely recognised, understood or taken into account in the design, validation, certification, introduction or support of the newly automated capability.
In this Masterclass, based on his new book “Transitioning to Autonomy: the psychology of human supervisory control”, Ron McLeod will help you understand the nature of those psychological demands, familiarise you with a comprehensive model of human supervisory control, and suggest approaches that can be useful in understanding and evaluating the risks associated with the new role. The comprehensive model draws on scientific research and psychological constructs developed over the past more than 50 years together with a healthy dose of experience and learning from a lifetime spent as a human factors specialist. The model provides a framework that pulls together the many issues that need to be considered when developing and introducing automation to control real-world activities.
The Masterclass will involve a high degree of interaction and group working and will encourage you to share and reflect on your own experiences. You'll be introduced to, and will have the opportunity to practice using, a simple tool – the Proactive Monitoring Assessment Tool for Human Supervisory Control. POMATsc can be used to estimate the quality of implementation and support expected to be provided to a human supervisory controller of a newly automated activity while it is still in development.
If you need to advise developers or operators of highly automated control systems about the human factors issues they should consider to ensure the people that will be relied on to supervise and oversee the performance of the automation, this Masterclass will ensure you'll be able to fill that role effectively, safely and reliably. You'll also have the opportunity to buy a heavily discounted copy of Ron’s book.
Scheduled for Wednesday morning.
About the facilitator
Ron holds an Honours degree in Psychology, an MSc in Ergonomics and a PhD in Engineering and Applied Science and has spent more than 40 years as a human factors specialist working primarily in safety critical and high hazard industries. He's been influential in helping industry learn, develop and apply best practice in human factors in the management of major hazards. As well as his 2015 book, ‘Designing for Human reliability: Human Factors Engineering in the Oil, Gas and Process Industries’, Ron has published more than 30 papers in the technical and scientific press in his own name, as well as contributing to numerous industry guides and best practices produced by a variety of professional and industry bodies.
Ron holds a position as Honorary Professor of Engineering Psychology at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and has been Visiting Professor of Human Factors at Loughborough University, School of Design. He is a Fellow, and has been a Trustee and Member of Council, of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors (CIEHF) and has served as a member of a peer review panel for the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Ron was the project lead and principal author for three CIEHF White Papers, including the 2022 publication “Human Factors in Highly Automated Systems”.
In 2020, Ron was awarded the CIEHF’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2022 he was made a Fellow of the International Ergonomics Association in recognition of his “..outstanding and sustained performance in the field of ergonomics and human factors at an international level…”. He retired from full-time working in 2022, but remains active lecturing and writing.
Effective communication
About this Masterclass
Tell, Show, Involve: Effective communication for human factors professionals. Communication lies at the heart of human factors practice - influencing how we share insights, shape understanding and drive safer, more human-centered systems. During this Masterclass you'll examine the importance of the message and its content, the ways delivery style shapes understanding and engagement, and the influence of the physical environment on communication effectiveness.
Through real-world examples from construction, civil engineering, transport and rail sectors, combined with interactive exercises, you'll strengthen your ability to communicate clearly, persuasively and collaboratively, from frontline workforce to management. We'll also discuss the wider application to other sectors.
Scheduled for Wednesday morning.
About the facilitator
Shelley has over 25 years’ experience in health and safety management and human factors across UK construction, rail, transport and manufacturing. Shelley’s experience ‘on site’ is supported by extensive theoretical and academic knowledge, which integrate to make effective solutions-focused approach to industry problems. Her specialist areas of interest are health and safety strategy and leadership, developing organisational health and safety culture maturity and human factors in the workplace.
The venue
The East Midlands Conference Centre (EMCC) was a great location and venue for our event. Take a look below for more information about the venue and its facilities.
Why EMCC?
Set within the University of Nottingham’s 330-acre green campus, the venue combines state-of-the-art facilities with a strong commitment to sustainability. It reflects the City of Nottingham’s ambition to become a net zero carbon city by 2028 - making it a fitting backdrop for a conference focused on future adaptation.
See a fly-through of the hotel
See a fly-through of the conference centre
Bringing our theme, Adapting to the Future, to life, we’re partnering with the University of Nottingham to offer exclusive access to their cutting-edge VR suite and car simulator. These immersive sessions provide a unique opportunity to explore new worlds and experience innovation at speed. Places will be limited and available to book - keep an eye out on this page for further information.
Details
Get away...
Set within the beautiful 330 acre grounds of the University of Nottingham, the East Midlands Conference Centre offers modern, flexible spaces with on-site catering and hydration stations. Easy access by car or public transport.
But stay connected...
Our session rooms for the event are on the ground floor and are all fully accessible. There’s plenty of space to chat with other delegates or find a quiet corner for a call or a few emails with high speed internet.
And feel refreshed...
Top quality accommodation is in the Orchard Hotel right next to the conference centre, so you can get a great night's sleep and wake up feeling energised and ready to be engaged throughout the day.
Directions
The address is East Midlands Conference Centre, Beeston Lane, Nottingham NG7 2RJ, United Kingdom
If you're travelling by car, from the M1, leave at junction 25 and follow signs for Nottingham on the A52. At the roundabout near the Toby Carvery, turn right onto the A6464 and follow signs to the University Park West Entrance. Once inside campus, follow signs for the East Midlands Conference Centre.
If you're travelling by train, the nearest major station is Nottingham (about 4 miles from the venue). From there, you can take a taxi (approx 10-15 min) or local bus/tram services towards the University Park Campus, then walk to the conference centre (about 20 min walk from the tram stop). Beeston station is also nearby (5-10 min to the venue in a taxi).
If you're flying, East Midlands Airport is the closest airport (around 14-20 min by car). Birmingham Airport is also an option (about 90 min by car) and has good onward rail links to Nottingham.
Here's what happened in 2025
Take a look at our exhibitors
FAQs
Got a question? Check the frequently asked questions below or email us.
How can I persuade my company that this will be a good event for me to go to?
We've put together a brief business case letter you can use that contains lots of reasons why you should attend this event. It's provided as an editable document so you can adapt it as you wish and send it to your manager or budget holder.
Will I get a refund if I book but can't attend?
It depends when you cancel your booking. Please see our terms and conditions.
I need to send my invoice to my employer to claim expenses or arrange payment. Where can I find it?
Log in to this website and go to My account, then My orders & invoices where you'll find your invoice which you can then download.
Where's the Careers Day gone?
After falling delegate attendance at Careers Days over the last few years, we're refocusing our efforts to attract and better support those looking for a career in human factors. So, instead of organising a single day dedicated to human factors careers, we'll be attending more external careers events, talking directly to students at universities, posting more on social media and improving our online careers information.
However, you can still talk to us about your career aspirations at the conference. We'd love to chat to you about options open to you to increase your knowledge, skills and experience and routes you could take to get you from where you are now to where you want to be.
If you've had success by exhibiting at the Careers Day jobs fair before or you're looking to add to your team, or you want to talk to potential new recruits for the first time, you can still book a stand at the conference and chat to delegates about what you do and what opportunities you have.
My organisation tends to take a long time to pay, what do I do?
Try and book well ahead of time. Please note that if you book within 30 days of the first day of the conference, payment must be made upon booking. See our terms & conditions.
Interested in being a sponsor or exhibitor at a future event?
With a potential to be in front of hundreds of professionals, you'll be able to get your message and branding across to a quality audience, whether you're looking for someone to join your team or you have a service or product to sell.
Sponsorship packages include a daytime conference tickets, recognition in the opening address, logo placement across event materials, and promotion through our website, social media, and pre-event communications.
Exhibitor packages includes a daytime conference ticket, a high-footfall 3m x 2m exhibition space, logo placement on the website and programme, and promotion through social media and pre-event communications.
If you need help or have questions, please email us or call on 0330 135 9833.
Award for conference attendance
If you're a Student or Graduate Member of the CIEHF, you could get up to £500 towards your travel expenses to attend and present at a future conference!
Find out more
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