This award is for any individual who has provided significant meritorious service to the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, and who has made a substantial and effective contribution to furthering the aims and operations of the Institute.
Who was Paul Branton?
Paul Branton was born in Vienna in 1916 and graduated in Psychology from Reading University in 1962, with a MPhil in Psychology from London in 1969. He had left Vienna after schooling to age 16 and worked in industry in Britain, with six years in the Royal Navy during the war, prior to his major academic studies.
He led the ergonomics section of the Furniture Industry Research Association from 1962 and was instrumental in introducing the ergonomics of comfort into furniture design. After a spell with the MRC Industrial Psychology Unit, involving a major field study of accidents, he was appointed head of ergonomics at the British Railways Board in 1969. Here he pursued pioneering studies into the ergonomics of railways in relation to both the traveller and the railway worker.
From 1976 he was an independent consultant, active as well in research (with the Stress Research Unit at Birkbeck College). His services to the Ergonomics Society in administration and operation and to ergonomics through contributions to British and International Standards were outstanding. His early interests in philosophy stayed with him all his life and, before his death in 1990, he was building many bridges between his professional and his philosophical interests which blended in all his work.
Roll of honour
2017 Mike Tainsh
2016 Alan Ferris
2015 David Streets
2010 Anne Ferguson
2009 Phil Bust
2007 Susan Taylor; John Cotton
2002 Tony Kaye
2001 Joe Langford; Tina Worthy
2000 D H O’Neill; Dr S Robertson
1999 Mr R Harvey
1998 Dr E J Lovesey
1995 Karenna Coombes; Rachel Benedyk
1994 John Spencer
1993 Heather Ward
1991 Prof Rainer Goldsmith
1990 Prof E N Corlett
1989 Dr Harry G Maule
1988 Paul Branton
1987 Dr Ivan D Brown; Gordon R W Simmonds
1986 H Michael Cooke; Prof E Nigel Corlett; Reginald G Sell; Prof Brian Shackel
1984 Clive J A Andrews, in recognition of his development of a Secondary Schools ergonomics syllabus