2024: Driving impact through applied research

In 2024, we continued to build our reputation as a leader in applied research. The Centre secured $2.7 million in funding from national and international sources, including $1.2 million from the United States Navy for research on preventing dysfunctional behaviour in military personnel, and $930,000 from Transport and Main Roads to apply systems thinking to support road safety action planning.

Collaboration remained a cornerstone of our work, with ongoing partnerships across Australia and internationally, including with institutions in the United States, France, and Canada. Our researchers also continued their work on significant ongoing projects, including our Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project to develop a theoretical model of teamwork for human-autonomy teams, an NHMRC Medical Research Future Fund project to develop new models of care for diverse populations, and an NHMRC Partnership grant to develop processes and tools to improve the health system’s response following patient harm.  

We continued to work with a range of industry and government funders and collaborators, including several state government transport departments, the ACT Government, Metro Trains Melbourne, the Australian Automobile Association, Queensland Health, Sunshine Coast Council and the Victorian Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions.

Highlights

• Centre members were invited to speak at various national and international conferences, including the Rail New Zealand conference in Auckland, the ACM Human Computer Interaction (CHI) conference in Hawaii, the Australian Government’s National Roundtable on Level Crossing Safety and the Australian Radiation Protection Nuclear Safety Agency’s licence holder forum.
• Centre members were invited to present to various industry bodies and forums including to the Board of Pacific National, the Australasian College of Road Safety’s System Safety Webinar, and CSIRO’s Collaborative Intelligence Future Science Platform.  
• Internationally, collaborations continued with Stony Brook University in the United States via a National Science Foundation grant on the development of an incident reporting and learning system for scientific field research and via projects funded by the World Anti-Doping Authority.
• Our work reached broad audiences through media appearances, podcasts, and publications, helping to translate complex research into practical insights.
• Centre members published the book Systems Thinking Methods in Sport: Practical Guidance and Case Study Applications, and guest edited a special issue in the journal Ergonomics on the topic of Ergonomics and Global Problems.

Celebrating our staff

• The Australian’s 2024 research magazine identified Professor Paul Salmon as the top Australian researcher in the field of quality and reliability (for the fifth year running).  
• Professor Salmon, along with adjunct members Emeritus Professor Neville Stanton and Professor Guy Walker, were named in the 2024 Stanford University-Elsevier World’s Top 2% Scientists list.
• Professor Salmon received the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia (HFESA) Margaret Bullock award, which recognises a major systematic program of human factors and ergonomics research that has led to demonstrable improvements in the safety, efficiency and/or usability of systems, products or environments.
• PhD candidate Nicole Liddell received the HFESA’s Ken Provins Award for best conference paper for her work on the impacts of stress on train driver performance.

Making a difference: Our research in action

Improving workplace safety with the PreventiMap method

Workplace safety remains a pressing issue in Australia, with nearly 1,900 worker fatalities over the past decade. Traditional safety approaches have focused on individual behaviour, relying heavily on training and compliance. However, research increasingly shows that workplace incidents often stem from complex, system-wide factors – not just individual actions.

To address this, our researchers developed the PreventiMap method: an innovative technique that builds on existing systems thinking frameworks to identify root causes of safety issues and co-design practical, preventative solutions with industry stakeholders. PreventiMap helps organisations move from analysis to action by mapping out key leverage points and collaboratively developing targeted interventions.

Since its development in 2016, PreventiMap has been applied across diverse sectors. In healthcare, it informed the NSW healthcare sector’s response to occupational violence, leading to the formation of a multi-stakeholder working group and the creation of sector-wide systems thinking resources. In the gig economy, research funded by the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning used PreventiMap to improve safety for food delivery riders, resulting in recommendations for better training, app design, infrastructure, and worker protections.

WorkSafe Victoria has also adopted PreventiMap to address hazards in residential disability care and youth residential services. One project led to a multi-level safety leadership program that trained nearly 200 frontline leaders, significantly improving their capacity to prevent occupational violence. The success of this initiative prompted a sector-wide rollout funded by the Victorian Government.

Beyond worker safety, PreventiMap was adopted by the Queensland Government in its Paediatric Sepsis Program Sustainability Plan 2022, which recommends its use to improve outcomes for patients and their families. Internationally, it is being used by researchers in the UK and Europe to investigate road safety in low- and middle-income countries, and by the National Research Centre for the Working Environment in Copenhagen, Denmark to design preventative measures in the construction, transport and psychiatry sectors.  

The PreventiMap method demonstrates how systems thinking can be translated into real-world change – empowering organisations to create safer, more resilient workplaces through collaborative, evidence-based action.

Designing safe, ethical and beneficial AI: A systems approach

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming daily life, offering powerful tools to process and interpret data at unprecedented speed and scale. While the benefits are vast, so too are the risks – particularly as AI systems become more autonomous and complex. There is now growing international consensus on the urgent need to understand and manage these risks.

Our AI safety research program, led by Professor Salmon and supported by the Australian Research Council, Trusted Autonomous Systems CRC, and Defence Science & Technology Group, is focused on developing practical tools and frameworks to guide the responsible design and use of AI.

Key outcomes include:

• An AI design lifecycle, which supports defence stakeholders to design, implement and use AI responsibly.
• The SECURE AI framework, which includes a comprehensive risk register and specification of the controls required to manage AI-related risks.

Our work has been recognised internationally, including a keynote presentation to NATO’s meaningful human control group and citation in MIT’s AI risk repository.

Our research has also influenced AI safety across sectors. In healthcare, Professor Salmon co-authored a whitepaper on healthcare AI for the UK Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, and in transport, Associate Professor Gemma Read led a partnership with RACQ to evaluate automated shuttle trials in Queensland, identifying key lessons for integrating autonomous vehicles into road transport systems.

• Broad reach: The team’s systematic review on artificial generative intelligence risks published in the Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence in 2023 has close to 41,000 reads, more than 280 citations and an Altmetric rating of 99.
• National and international influence: The work has also been shared with CSIRO, the Australian Institute of Health and Safety, the International Council on Systems Engineering, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) and the Defence Artificial Intelligence Research Network (DAIRNet).
• Raising public awareness: This work has reached broad audiences through media coverage by ABC, The Guardian, and Reuters, and through public engagement, including podcasts and The Conversation articles with over 150,000 reads.

Resources

Download the report (PDF)