The local organizing committee for the Sixth International Scientific Conference on Prevention of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (PREMUS 2007) seeks to enhance the participation in and quality of outcomes from the conference. PREMUS is the pre-eminent international meeting on work-related Musculoskeletal Disorder (work-related MSD) prevention, with a strong emphasis on connecting research and practice. Conference objectives include: (1) To further research into and dissemination of state-of-the-art effective interventions aimed at the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders at work (2) To bring together scientists, practitioners in occupational health and safety, ergonomists, industrial engineers and policy makers, with the express intent of fostering cross-disciplinary, trans-disciplinary, and translational research into the etiology and prevention of work-related MSDs (3)To provide an international platform for the exchange of knowledge and expertise in musculoskeletal research and practice related to occupational work-related MSD prevention. PREMUS is historically funded from registration fees, in-kind contributions and financial support from the corporate and educational communities. However, the participation of students, injured worker representatives, practitioners and other stakeholders has been limited. To obtain the desired outcomes from this meeting, the local PREMUS organizing committee has identified the need for supplemental funding with the goal of: (1) Conducting broad outreach to new presenters/participants who traditionally have not attended this conference; (2) Recruiting students and developing student incentive and award programs; (3) Promoting translational partnerships between researchers and practitioners; and (4) Designing a collaborative post conference network and novel strategies to disseminate conference results. ? ? ?
