From inception, the MHSC’s research was conducted by the Safety in Mines Research Advisory Committee (SIMRAC), which was the first Advisory Committee of Council as legislated in the Mine Health and Safety Act 29 of 1996, as amended. SIMRAC operated through sub-committees, which were:
- SIMGAP: Safety in Mines Gold and Platinum sector
- SIMCOL: Safety in Mines Coal sector
- SIMGEN: Safety in Mines General
- SIMOTH: Safety in Mines Other Mines.
The work that addressed occupational health and safety in the gold and platinum sector were prefixed with the acronym GAP, COL for the collieries and OTH for other mines outside the gold, platinum and coal commodities. If the research was relevant to all commodities, in carried the pre-fix GEN. This remained the case until the year 2002, when a new nomenclature was formulated.
The new naming system for projects started with “SIM”, representing Safety in Mines. It was followed by a 6 digit number, the first two of which gave the year the project kicked off. The next two digits represented the focus area for the project and the last two represented the numeric order of the project, within the focus area. For an example, if there were 3 projects initiated that year in the focus area, they would each end with 01, 02 and 03, respectively.
The MHSC research projects are grouped and classified into nine (9) thrust areas. The thrust areas are aptly named according to the major agency which the research project was intended to address in the first place.
If you would like to view project summaries please click here
