Advances in social and organizational factors

"Preface The National Academy of Engineering Committee on Engineering's Grand Challenges has identified in 2008 14 areas awaiting engineering solutions in the 21st century (see http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996.aspx). These 14 areas were defined by a panel of technology and engineering luminaries. The goal of the panel was to create a slate of Grand Challenges for scientists and engineers. Among these challenges five are directly related to the content of this book: 1. Restore and improve urban infrastructure 2. Advance health informatics 3. Prevent terror 4. Improve cyberspace 5. Advanced personalized learning This means that the contributions in this book are of a high value for the future of the world. These challenges have a more technological point of view as they are defined from an engineering perspective. The Lund Declaration prepared the future European Grand Societal Challenges (Chuberre & Lioli, 2010). So, these are more focused on societal issues. They identified six themes calling for solutions to tackle them. Two of these are closely related to the content of this book: 6. Ageing societies: As the life duration of people increases, this raises numerous issues among which economic, social inclusion and accessibility. 7. Security: How to improve the security of European citizens and their goods within but also outside Europe? "--