Keynotes

Introductory talk:

Promoting sustainable lifestyles, social innovation and wellbeing in Europe: lessons from three large-scale interdisciplinary projects

Prof. Ricardo Garcia-Mira & Dr. Adina Dumitru

Ricardo Garcia Mira is PhD in Psychology by the University of Santiago de Compostela (1994) and Full Professor of Social and Environmental Psychology at the University of A Coruña (Spain) since 1995, where he is the coordinator of the People – Environment Research Group.

Adina Dumitru is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of A Coruña (Spain).

Lecture:

Collective Problems Require Collective Answers: A Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action

Immo Fritsche is a Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Leipzig, Germany. He has a background in both environmental (PhD, 2002 at U Magdeburg) and experimental social psychology (Habilitation, 2009 at U Jena). His research interests lie in basic processes of motivated social cognition and (inter-)group behavior as well as in the social psychology of the environmental crisis. Connecting these approaches has led to a research program that targets the development of both intervention knowledge and theory, attracting considerable external funding (e.g., by the German Research Foundation, EU Commission etc.) and resulting in numerous publications in the leading journals of social and environmental psychology.

Lecture:

Unprecedented Disasters and Environmental Emergencies: What the Rise of Right-wing Populism Means for Transitions towards Sustainability, and What We Should Do Next

Winnifred R. Louis (PhD McGill, 2001) is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland. Her research interests focus on the influence of identity and norms on social decision-making. She has studied this broad topic in contexts from politics and community activism to health and environmental choices. Winnifred is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals and book chapters, and she has been awarded over $1m of competitive grant funding. She also works with Green organisations, politicians, and conservation biologists to promote effective environmental advocacy.

Lecture:

Understanding intrinsic motivation to engage in pro-environmental actions

Linda Steg, PhD, is professor of Environmental Psychology and head of the Department of Social Psychology at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Groningen. Her research focuses on understanding factors influencing environmental behaviour, the effects and acceptability of strategies aimed to encourage pro-environmental behaviour, and how and why acting pro-environmentally affects wellbeing. She coordinates the European Platform for Energy Research in the Socio-Economic Nexus (see person.eu), and is member of the Advisory Group on Energy for Horizon 2020. She was president of Division 4 ‘Environmental Psychology’ of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), and scientific director of the Kurt Lewin Institute.

Lecture:

Can Detention Be Humane and Sustainable?

Richard Wener, PhD, is Professor of Environmental Psychology, and head of the Sustainable Urban Environments program at the Tandon School of Engineering of New York University. He is a fellow and past president of Division 34 of the American Psychological Association, and received the Career and Distinguished Service Awards from the Environmental Design Research Association and the Distinguished Scholar Research Award from the International Corrections and Prisons Association.

Lecture:

Sustainability, learned helplessness and empowerment. Revisiting the challenges for environmental psychology.

Enric Pol is Professor of Social Psychology and Environmental Psychology at the University of Barcelona. He coordinates since 1987 the Master in “Environmental Management and Intervention: Person and Society”. Since 2005 he is the Coordinator of a Research Group on Social, Environmental and Organizational Psychology (PsicoSAO). In 1982, together with the architect Josep Muntañola and the psychologist Montserrat Morales, he organized the 7 IAPS Conference (truly the first conference of the recently created International Association of People-Environment Studies).