Grand challenges for human factors and ergonomics
Contemporary society faces a growing set of complex global issues representing significant human health, well-being, and sustainability threats. Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) has a critical role to play in responding to these issues; however, there remain a set of grand challenges that require resolution. This paper presents and discusses six grand challenges for HFE and related key research thrust areas for each of the challenges. The grand challenges are (1) Evolution in Societal Thinking; (2) Future of Human Work in Industry 5.0; (3) Climate Change and Sustainability; (4) Future of Education and Training; (5) Future of Personalized Health, and (6) Life, Technology, and the Metaverse. These grand challenges and key research thrust areas were derived by twenty HFE professionals who are the authors of this paper. The implications of these grand challenges for education, training, research, and implementation of HFE principles and methods for the benefit of humankind are discussed.
Authors
- Neville A. Stanton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8562-3279)
- Peter A. Hancock (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4936-066X)
- William B. Rouse (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4009-8447)
- Colin G. Drury (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8368-5783)
- Hasan Ayaz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5514-2741)
- Pei‐Luen Patrick Rau (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5713-8612)
- Ben D. Sawyer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3009-6707)
- Kay M. Stanney (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2663-8662)
- Andrew Thatcher (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5342-980X)
- Qin Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2436-5410)
- X. Jessie Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6071-0387)
- Mica R. Endsley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2359-947X)
- Waldemar Karwowski (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9134-3441)
- Yinni Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3567-2156)
- Paul M. Salmon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7403-0286)
- Vincent G. Duffy
- William S. Marras
- Gavriel Salvendy
- Ahmet Çakır
- Tony Andre
Institutions
- University of Central Florida (US)
- Google (United States) (US)
- University of the Sunshine Coast (AU)
- Georgetown University (US)
- University of the Witwatersrand (ZA)
- Purdue University West Lafayette (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Design Interactive (United States) (US)
- SA Technologies (United States) (US)
- University of Southampton (GB)
- San Jose State University (US)
- The Ohio State University (US)
- University at Buffalo, State University of New York (US)
- Drexel University (US)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science
- Published
- 2025-04-02
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1080/1463922x.2024.2431336
- Citations
- 10
- Primary Topic
- Ergonomics and Human Factors
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 6.74