ECPA Awards – European Community Psychology Association

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

Announcements

Beyond Genders. Intersectionality between theory and practice. Interdisciplinary gazes.

November 24-25, 2023 University of Turin CIRSDe (Interdisciplinary Center for Women’s and Gender Research and Studies – University of Turin is organizing the international conference Beyond Genders. Intersectionality between theory and practice. Interdisciplinary gazes. The conference aims to foster a multidisciplinary debate and to explore the state of the art of research and reflections on intersectionality. What are the perspectives through which intersectionality has developed over the years, and what are its applications? What makes its implementation complex, and what are the pitfalls to its effective applicability? Why do some areas of study seem to have a more fluid dialogue with this concept while others still prove refractory? What are the most effective research methods, and why? How is the concept of intersectionality being explored and debated in different disciplines? How can an intersectional perspective be developed in global contexts that necessarily have to come to terms with a past of colonialism and oppression? People interested in participating may submit a contribution: the deadline for abstract submission is June 15, 2023. More details can be found here

Call for papers | Symposium on Community, Psychology and Climate Justice

This symposium focuses on psychology and climate justice through the lens of community. Selected papers will be invited to submit a chapter to an edited collection after the symposium. Please submit extended abstracts of no more than 800 words covering one more of the above topics. The closing date for abstract submissions is 30 March 2023.

Call for papers: Climate change and environmental activism

Special Issue Call for Papers, JSSE-Journal of Social Sciences Education Environmental activism about climate change has been at the core of social movements. Across the globe, activists engaged in demonstrations, organised strikes, occupied buildings of corporations and, more recently, performed targeted civil disobedience actions. Some of these activists are engaged in transnational organisations that share, not only slogans (‘there is no planet B’) and information, but also educate one another on the use of online and offline strategies. More notably than before, many of these movements involve and are led by children and young people, in a clear demonstration of their political agency – and their concerns about the future. While this raises important questions about the role of schools and education in this existential crisis, the complexity of the situation is enhanced by other factors. The actions of governments and politicians have been erratic. For some, climate change is still debatable, ideological and ‘fake news’. For others, promoting community resilience in the face of climate change is a new priority, but one that coexists with the maintenance of a carbon-based economy. As there are growing signs of the severe consequences of the rise in the planet’s warming, there are also signs of the lack of serious policy regarding climate change. Furthermore, it seems that the climate challenge is one of these new issues that drive political polarisation and structure the culture wars about the curriculum and the role of (socio-)scientific knowledge in school and society in general. On the other hand, the intensity of environmental injustice is immense and works across other layers of inequality: intergenerational, as many of these changes will dramatically affect future generations; geographical since the countries most troubled by climate change are not those who are contributing the most to global warming; colonialism, given the historical continuity of patterns of exploitation, displacement and extractivism; as well as the intersection with existing economic, gender, race and disability inequalities. This special issue welcomes papers that address climate change and environmental activism from this broad perspective, focusing on political, social and economic education, its policies, goals, institutions, practices and challenges. This includes discussions of the civic and political identities and experiences of climate change activists, but also on the political controversies and debates around climate change. It also welcomes papers that address how formal and non-formal education for climate change can play a role in generating relevant knowledge, dispositions and actions, or in creating community resilience towards climate change. How does engagement with climate change activism influence participants’ civic and political agency and empowerment?How are climate change controversies approached in educational settings and social and traditional media?In what ways does climate change anxiety interfere with individual and community resilience about climate change regarding forms of dealing with it in diverse educational contexts?In what forms are transnational and global activism taken up in educational contexts?What are the effects of climate change formal and non-formal education in participants and communities? How are the knowledge and rationalities that have so far been deemed relevant in socio-scientific education being challenged, contested and changed?Which transformative approaches to social science education are being further developed and how are these linked to the global education agenda setting, for example of UNESCO?How does environmental injustice intersect with other layers of inequality and how is this interplay addressed in education?How are minoritized groups and communities engaging in climate activism? How are links with capitalism, colonialism and globalisation explored in educational approaches to climate change? Deadline for manuscript submission: March 15, 2023. Editors: Maria Fernandes-Jesus, Andrea Szukala, Isabel Menezes. More info HERE.