OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH IN CONSTRUCTION: SOME INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES ON EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Several academic institutions from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Spain and Portugal work together to investigate and benchmark the management of occupational safety and health in the construction industry. The aims of this network are: (a) comparison of occupational safety and health among countries, emphasizing the legal and institutional frameworks; (b) analysis of management strategies and good practices used by industry leaders; (c) study of good practices and strategies in other sectors that can be adapted to the construction industry, such as resilience; (d) diffusion of knowledge to undergraduate and postgraduate students and to professionals form the industry. This paper presents, first, this ambitious international project. Later, it comments the different strategies used to share and expand the knowledge to the academic institutions, incorporating it into the syllabuses at postgraduate level. Some particular deliverables such as the website and the e-books are also discussed in detail. This kind of multi-cultural project allows for the interchange of experiences and ideas that can be transformed into knowledge for students at the Master degree level and into training for researchers at the Ph.D. level also. The paper presents and discusses some of these results.