| Title: | Peter A Start Occupational Safety and Health Professional Award |
|---|---|
| Award Type: | Medal |
| Long Description: | This award is proposed by the family of the late Dr Peter A Start. Dr. Peter Start, a senior lecturer in Chemistry in UCD, and UCD’s safety officer for 14 years, was joint founder and academic director of the UCD Centre for Safety and Health at Work, established in 1989. Peter played a major part in the development of UCD’s part time Diploma in Safety, Health and Welfare at Work, first offered in 1989, one of the first Irish professional education programmes in OSH, working with former Registrar and Deputy President of UCD, Dr Caroline Hussey, and former Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Authority, Tom Walsh. In 1993, recognising the need for a more accessible qualification for those with responsibility for OSH, but who may not wish to make it their career, Dr’s Start and Hussey developed the UCD Certificate in Safety and Health at Work, a distance-education satellite-delivered programme, the first and only one of its kind in Ireland; this was model which has delivered UCD education locally to working adult students for nearly 30 years. In 2013 it was converted to its current online blended learning format. Dr Start was a chartered fellow of the Professional Body (Institution of Occupational Safety & Health) and a founding member of IOSH’s Ireland Branch; he was awarded OSH Person of the Year by IOSH Ireland in 2012. He was also a Life Governor of the Security Institute of Ireland, a fellow of the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland and of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was instrumental in gaining industry support for the Sun Alliance Award (Medal), which was awarded to the top student on the part-time Diploma in Safety, Health and Welfare at Work each year from 1990 to 2006. It is fitting that a medal in Dr. Peter Start’s name be the symbol of recognition of academic excellence for the the current generation OSH students taking the Higher Diploma / MSc programmes. The award will be based solely on academic merit. |
| Value: |