Since 2022, Welfare e Ergonomia is indexed as “Class A” (Field 14) by ANVUR, the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes.

Project

The editorial project of the Welfare and Ergonomics journal was born from the desire to provide a “board” for discussion and circulation of theoretical and empirical studies on issues related to welfare. The periodic publication of two yearly issues configures the journal as an agile tool for dialogue within the scientific community. Since its inception, the journal has taken on specific features: to be the place to encourage the meet between the more empirical approach, proper to the CNR, and the theoretical one, proper to the University; it adopts the double-blind peer review; it publishes in print and digital; has a monographic character. The journal was created as an emanation within the context of the National Research Council. The editorial project by Antonella Ciocia – who took over the editorial direction – dates to 2014, with the first issue published in 2015. The mission of the Research Institute on Population and Social Policies and the background of the journal editor shaped the choice of the early scientific topics covered. In 2019, to encourage greater collaboration between the CNR and the University, the editorial project was revised, shared over the years with the organs of the journal. Since then, it has been "steered" by the co-direction of Antonella Ciocia (Cnr-Irpps) and Mara Tognetti (University of Milan La Statale). From 2020, the issues, while maintaining the monographic character, also host an open section providing space to innovative and interesting works related to the ongoing scientific debate or the historical moment.

 

Aims

Welfare and Ergonomics are two terms that revolve around people and their well-being. Welfare in its various forms is the body of social policies aimed at affirming the right to citizenship, although in recent decades some changes have modified the original framework, calling into question inter-generational and inter-gender equity, between in-work and out-of-work people and amongst professional categories. Ergonomics as a method is linked to the development of technology, although over time it has broadened its range of interest and, through a methodology of participatory design, has dealt with culture, reception, integration, and professional awareness, while remaining an operational tool for health and safety at work. The two terms were born in the same context: welfare with the introduction of laws on compulsory insurance against risks arising from work carried out; ergonomics with the design of spaces, tools, and production processes according to workers’ specific skills. Modern welfare and modern ergonomics, through various phases and involving an increasing number of areas of study/intervention, have come to be concerned with people in their interaction with the environment, with different shades. Both have stressed the importance of supporting psycho-physical and relational well-being. The journal, combining these two terms, aims to develop a new way of studying citizens' welfare and safety challenges, by mixing established social policy knowledge with a multidisciplinary approach and ergonomics methods. The integration between welfare policies and ergonomics makes it possible to look at social issues through different interpretative angles, in the attempt to identify more effective and more sustainable solutions.