The 51^st SELF congress aims to focus on ergonomics and the profession of ergonomist which are both involved in multiple changes (which may be social, managerial, academic, scientific…).  Several issues are on the table and will be put in debate:

- What are the ergonomists practices?

- How does the profession change in relation to the social, technical, organizational requirements?

- Do the changes in the disciplines fit with the present or emerging socio-economical needs?

- In this frame, what are the benefits of the research in ergonomics?

- How does the vocational training change in relation with the profession (s) changes ?

Such interrogations echo with remarks and comments soon mentioned in the nineties, notably by Alain Wisner and Jacques Christol. So A. Wisner underlined that: “If, in order to deal with an issue, it is necessary to enlarge the field, to consider other aspects, …  Why not!  It is the exciting side of ergonomics but also unsatisfactory from the theoretical standpoint. As far has one has more and more questions, one faces very different and diverse fields and scientific models. But I am not in such a position that I can say that this is ergonomics and this is not ergonomics. There are multiple ways to perform ergonomics in the world.”

As for J. Christol (1992), he wrote: “Too often, alas, there is a reduction of the field. Ergonomics is then either classed as an existing discipline (such as physiology, neurophysiology, psychology, …) or classed as a limited concern (to ‘humanize’ the work) with no more precisions, or limited to certain aspects certainly important but which are peripheral in regard with the operators activity : aspects of the video display unit, position of the controls, physical environment . The word ergonomics is often used in a restrictive meaning (the ergonomics of the workstation). The heterogeneity of the meaning given to the word ergonomics is linked to the heterogeneity of the ergonomists practices, with the diversity of the resources which are given to him or that he asks in order to answer relevantly the needs of the companies or the public bodies which make appeal to him.”

So A. Wisner and J. Christol have underlined the diversity inherent to the discipline and the professional practice due to the nature of the object with which it intervenes: the relations “man-situation” in working environment and / or in the frame of product design.

What has become of these statements … more than twenty years later in the eyes of the present and future occupational health and safety issues, the organizational changes in the companies and the changes in the technologies. What has become of the taking into account of the performance issues and of the intervention evaluation by the companies?