The European Community Psychology Association (ECPA) each year confers awards in the four different categories:
- The ECPA Lifetime Career Award: The Award is to honour individuals with outstanding, long-term scientific contribution to Community Psychology theory, research, and practice.
- The ECPA Young Career Award: This award will recognize individuals for their notable contributions to the field of community psychology and who are within eight years of the award of their Ph.D.
- The ECPA Best Doctoral Thesis Award: This Award is to identify the best doctoral thesis on a topic relevant to the field of community psychology completed in the last two years (e.g., for 2023 between January 2020 to December 2022).
- The ECPA Contribution to Practice Award: The Award is presented to honour individuals who are making a significant contribution to the field of Community Psychology (e. g., have developed intervention projects in local or virtual communities, which produced a significant impact in the communities).
ECPA Awards procedures
The prizes are awarded annually
Nominations and self-nominations are both accepted. ECPA invites its member to nominate candidates
ECPA Board members cannot be nominated
Past presidents cannot send self-nominations
Each application should include a 1-2 pages letter describing the nominee’s work and why they are worthy of recognition, as well as the proposer (when applicable) and nominee’s personal data (names, address, and e-mails).
Nominations should be sent as e-mail attachments to the ECPA BOARD at ecpa.psychassociation@gmail.com by July 31
We strongly recommend submitting supporting documents, including published papers, books chapters and/or other relevant outputs.
For the ECPA Doctoral Thesis Award, please submit a document (max. 5,000 words) summarising the main sections (i.e., state of the art, methodology, results and conclusions), including a summary of the thesis (~300 words) and a brief presentation of the doctoral student (~200 words).
Each award is accompanied by the Award Certificate and announcement of the award on the ECPA website. More benefits for the winners include free membership for 1 year; free registration for the ECPA conference; public announcement of the nomination at the ECPA event in Bratislava (November 2023).
The prizes will be awarded by a Committee, which will include one person from the ECPA Board and at least two invited external experts.
ECPA Awards 2021
The ECPA Lifetime Career Award 2021 was assigned to Josè Ornelas.

Read the milestones of his career here
The ECPA Best Doctoral Thesis Award 2021 was assigned to Francesca Esposito
She discussed a dissertation entitled Life and Lived Experiences of People inside Migration-related Detention: An Ecological Exploration into Rome’s Detention Center. The dissertation addresses a critical and contemporary issue in Europe and beyond and offers important contributions to Community Psychology. It was also particularly valued the courage to research this topic in such a challenging setting, following community psychology approaches and methods. The dissertation is an example of outstanding community psychology work and as such, it deserves the award. Visit her profile here

ECPA Awards 2022
The ECPA Lifetime Career Award 2022 was assigned to Caterina Arcidiacono

Read the milestones of her career here
The ECPA Best Doctoral Thesis Award 2022 was assigned to Marta Gaboardi

Marta Gaboardi has been awarded the best doctoral thesis award for 2022 for her dissertation “Working with people experiencing homelessness, completed under the supervision of Professor Santinello. Marta Gaboardi has done outstanding work, as her thesis develops the issue of homelessness in an original way with reference to (a) theoretical perspective – ecological approach (b) intervention programme – HousingFirst (HF) (c) point of view – service providers and not only homeless people. The candidate shows mastery in the use of different tools used to collect data, with an innovative approach using photovoice in cross-cultural research, and offers robust and mature insights on the practical implications of the research and its future directions.
Visit her profile here