The "1st National Occupational Health and Safety Student Congress," first held in 2015, was initiated to emphasize the importance of academic studies in ensuring the sustainability of worker health and safety.
The "6th National Occupational Health and Safety Student Congress," with the main theme "Occupational Health and Safety Practices in Mining," will be held under the leadership of Gümüşhane University, with the support of Üsküdar University, Istanbul Medeniyet University, and MESKA Foundation. The congress, featuring expert professionals in occupational health and safety as speakers, aims to lead the monitoring of health and safety practices in the mining sector. This symposium, bringing together stakeholders such as students, industry representatives, experts, and academics in the field of occupational health and safety, will contribute to the development and effective implementation of occupational health and safety practices. The symposium will focus on supporting and spreading such gatherings with scientific activities.
Topics to be discussed include risk and root cause analyses, engineering approaches in safety, occupational diseases, emergency coordination and drills, safety culture, fire and fire protection, as well as other subjects within the scope of occupational health and safety. Additionally, there will be exchanges of information on leveraging rapidly advancing technology.
All papers submitted to the symposium by the panelists will be evaluated by at least two referees through a double-blind peer review process conducted by the organizing committee. Papers deemed insufficient based on referee feedback will be returned to the authors for revision if necessary. Studies that are still deemed inadequate after revision will be rejected with an explanation, while accepted papers will be published as full texts or abstracts in an e-book following the symposium and digitally archived. Full-text papers approved by the referee committee will also have the opportunity to be published in the Journal of Health Sciences (indexed in TR Index) under the rules of Gümüşhane University's Faculty of Health Sciences, thus contributing to scientific knowledge.
These symposiums, organized to address problems in the multidisciplinary field of occupational health and safety, propose solutions, and share new perspectives, aim to connect industry professionals with students. Based on 2024 data, there are 171 universities providing education in Occupational Health and Safety in Turkey, with approximately 7,000 registered students. The 6th National Occupational Health and Safety Student Congress will guide prospective occupational safety specialists in expanding their perspectives with scientific activities, developing innovative solutions for occupational health and safety, gaining awareness of studies conducted in the USA and Europe, and aligning with those studies. It will also prepare them as ready experts for the industry and its requirements.
Within this framework, the event primarily aims to share studies on occupational health and safety practices in mining, as well as collaborations between industry and academia, and to strengthen these partnerships. Activities in occupational health and safety aim to prioritize a "safety first" approach in all processes within universities and the private sector, ensuring awareness, sensitivity, and consciousness in this field.

Chair of the Organizing Committee

Prof. Dr. Ebru Emine ŞÜKÜROĞLU