BNU aviation student wins top European research prize

A Buckinghamshire New University international aviation regulation and law student, Martin Geršl, has won a prestigious European award for his Master’s research on near-sightedness among pilots.

Martin won the European Prize Aviation Economics and Management prize in the Bachelor’s/Master’s category for his MSc research titled Near-sightedness among pilots: The perceived implications of myopic vision, supervised by BNU Senior Lecturer, Sam Guest. The news was announced at an award ceremony during the annual European Aviation Conference (EAC) on 3 December.

Martin attended both the EAC and awards ceremony, and was elated to win: “I am extremely pleased and surprised to have won this award, and so glad that I took part. I feel very delighted to have contributed some new knowledge on a barely explored field which future research could build upon. I would love to kindly thank my tutors Sam Guest and David Warnock-Smith for encouraging me to participate in the competition and leading my project in the best possible way. I am sure I would not have achieved this award without their enormous support and assistance.”

Professor David Warnock-Smith, Head of Research and Enterprise in the School of Aviation and Security, said: “Martin’s work was such an original and substantive piece of research and his award was very well deserved. This is brilliant news for Martin and also for BNU, showcasing the quality of work that BNU students are capable of producing on an international stage.”

Does myopic vision pose safety risks?

Martin’s research combined his two personal interests as a myopic pilot – vision and aviation. Based on his experiences and supported by numerous literature sources, he aimed to identify implications of myopic vision among short-sighted civilian pilots to uncover potential safety risks.

An empirical survey he did as part of his research included responses from over 800 myopic pilots, representing 63 countries in the world. “Existing research suggested that individuals diagnosed with myopia suffered from visual impairments,” says Martin, “such as degraded peripheral vision due to spectacle frames and decreased visual acuity in dim light conditions”.

Moreover, the studies considered supported his personal experience and hypothesis that such visual limitations could affect safety to a certain degree. Having discovered that a high occurrence of myopia is also reflected in global aviation, he intended to conduct an original study and investigate these implications among pilots whose eyesight is vital for their role. 

In conclusion, Martin found that though peripheral vision may be reduced to some extent due to myopia, short-sighted pilots generally did not encounter difficulties spotting other static or moving objects in their visual field. “However, half of the myopic pilots experienced a decrease in visual acuity in dim light to some degree. Likewise, more than half of the participants reported difficulties in low light, either reading distant airport signs or identifying other flying objects. Thus, I concluded that reduced peripheral vision did not pose a safety issue, but decreased visual acuity in low light could affect safety to some extent.”

In 2020, BNU celebrated its 20th anniversary of delivering aviation management degree programmes, the first UK HE provider to do so.