European Psychology in the Post-Covid Era. Strategies for Sustainable Change
After having worked at a child guidance clinic for some years, Christoph Steinebach became head of a center for early education. In 1995 he became professor of special education at the Catholic University of Applied Sciences in Freiburg (Germany), serving for some years as head of institute of research and development and president. Starting in 2007 he became professor at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, dean of the School of Applied Psychology, director of the Institute of Applied Psychology, Zurich (Switzerland), and in 2013 adjunct professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto (CA).
Christoph Steinebach is member of different national and international associations, currently president of the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA) and member of the Executive Council of SPS Swiss Psychological Society.
Christoph Steinebach is a developmental psychologist. His research interests relate to resilience across the lifespan, health promotion in youth, and competence development in psychological training and counseling. Recent research projects include mindfulness and peer support across the lifespan and team development.
Tuesday 4 July
4.30 – 5.15pm
A pharmacologically informed paradigm for psychotherapy research: Active ingredients, kinetics and dynamics
Ioana Alina Cristea is Associate Professor at the Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Italy and a Research Affiliate at the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University, USA (METRICS). She is trained as a clinical psychologist and cognitive behavioral psychotherapist and has previously worked at Babes-Bolyai University, Romania, the Universities of Pisa and Pavia, Italy, Stanford University, USA and Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Between 2016 and 2017, she was a Fulbright Visiting Senior Scholar at Stanford University. Her field is best defined as meta-research (“research on research”), taking a bird’s eye view on how research is planned, conducted, reported, and used within and across different disciplines. She applies meta-research methods, such as meta-analyses, to clinically important questions, as for example how to best treat or prevent mental disorders in adults and children or how to improve psychotherapies. She is currently the principal investigator of an European Research Council (ERC)-funded Starting grant (DECOMPOSE), which aims to uncover the active ingredients of psychological interventions for severe mental disorders, by decomposing psychological treatment packages and integrating diverse components in a cross-disorder, comprehensive taxonomy. The project aims to radically reevaluate effectiveness and personalization from the vantage point of active ingredients. The final goal is to create an open clinical decision support system, where users can “assemble” and “dismantle” interventions, visualizing gain or loss of treatment effectiveness.
Tuesday 4 July
2.45 – 3.45pm
Different cognitive assessment to diagnose dementia across cross-culturally
Professor Eef Hogervorst has a Chair in Biological Psychology and acts as Director for Dementia Research at Loughborough, consistently in the top 10 of University league tables in the UK. She also has visiting posts at the University of Leicester and Nottingham and frequently collaborates with her former colleagues at Oxford and Cambridge University in the UK. In Indonesia she also holds visiting Professorial posts (UI, URINDO, URIYO) and has collaborated there on research and educational projects since 2006. She wrote over 200 international peer reviewed publications with her collaborators on dementia diagnostics and risk/protective factors for dementia, which have been cited over 9000 times in the literature. Eef often is invited to give keynotes worldwide at dementia conferences. With collaborators she obtained over £10M funding for her research.
Wednesday 5 July
9 – 10am
Coping with collective traumas: From mass violence to Covid-19
Roxane Cohen Silver, Ph.D., is Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Institutional Research and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological Science, the Department of Medicine, and the Program in Public Health at the University of California, Irvine, where she has been actively involved in research, teaching, and administration since 1989. An international expert in the field of stress and coping, Silver has spent over four decades studying acute and long-term psychological and physical reactions to stressful life experiences, including personal traumas such as loss, physical disability, and childhood sexual victimization, as well as larger collective events such as terror attacks, infectious disease outbreaks, and natural disasters across the world (e.g., U.S., Indonesia, Chile, Israel). Her research has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Public Health Service. She has guided governments in the U.S. and abroad in the aftermath of terrorist attacks and earthquakes and served on numerous senior advisory committees and task forces for the Department of Homeland Security, providing advice to the Department and its component agencies on the psychological impact of disasters and terrorism. She has also testified at the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Science, Space and Technology on two occasions and given several briefings to policymakers at the White House and on Capitol Hill on the role of social and behavioral science research in disaster preparedness and response and the impact of the media following disasters.
Wednesday 5 July
2.45 – 3.45pm
Relationships and mental health: The role of social and emotional learning at school
Professor Robin Banerjee is Head of the School of Psychology and a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Sussex. His research involves close collaborations with practitioners and policymakers in the areas of education and mental health. A core applied focus of his work is the development and evaluation of school-based strategies to support pupils' social and emotional functioning. He also founded the Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness, an interdisciplinary research centre focused on illuminating the nature of kindness and its impacts on people and communities.
Thursday 6 July
9 – 10am
Coping with threats to identity amid change, uncertainty and technological innovation
Rusi Jaspal is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Exchange) and a Professor of Psychology at the University of Brighton in the United Kingdom. He was educated at the University of Cambridge, the University of Surrey and Royal Holloway, University of London. Rusi Jaspal has held professorships at De Montfort University Leicester, Nottingham Trent University and ÅboAkademiin Finland.He has written over 200books, articles, book chapters and reports, mainly in the area of identity processes and psychological wellbeing.
Tuesday 4 July
9 – 10am
Inequality: The enemy between us
Kate Pickett OBE is Professor of Epidemiology and Deputy Director of the Centre for Future Health at the University of York and a Co-Director of Health Equity North. She is co-author, with Richard Wilkinson, of the best selling and award winning books The Spirit Level (2009) and The Inner Level (2018). Kate is a Trustee of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, and patron of The Equality Trust, and recently chaired the Greater Manchester Independent Inequalities Commission.
Tuesday 4 July
10.30 – 11.30am
Contested meanings and uses of hate speech
Inari Sakki, D.Soc.Sc., is Professor in Social Psychology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Between 2020-2024 she leads two projects on populism “Populist Appeal” funded by Kone Foundation and ‘Mobilising Populism: its representations, affects and identities’ funded by the Academy of Finland. Inari’s core interests lie in the field of societal and political social psychology, including research on political communication, nationalism, populism, hate speech. national and European identity, collective memory, social representations, discourse, visual and multimodality. Inari’s work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals in the fields of social and political psychology, nationalism and memory studies, education, qualitative research methods, and discourse studies.
Thursday 6 July
11.45am – 12.45pm
Social psychological implications of our hybrid future
Nicky Hayes has been studying psychology for over 50 years, and has a wide-ranging knowledge of the discipline. Her specialities are the social psychology of organisations and the appplication of psychology in teaching, learning, and exams. She has written over 25 books, mainly on psychology but also including management and neuroscience. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and of the British Psychological Society, Visiting Professor in psychology at Suffolk University and a member of the Society of Authors.
Wednesday 5 July
4.30 – 5.15pm
The EuroPsy: Reflections on achievements and directions for the future
Rosaleen McElvaney is the Chair of the EuroPsy European Awarding Committee (EAC), which provides oversight of the implementation of the EuroPsy across Europe. Rosaleen has served as a member of the EAC since 2010, as Chair of the Specialist European Awarding Committee for Psychologists Specialising in Psychotherapy from 2010 to 2017 and Chair of the EAC since 2017, taking on the mantle from Ingrid Lunt, its first chair and co-founder of the EuroPsy project. Rosaleen's is past president of the Psychological Society of Ireland. She is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, academic, trainer and author whose clinical and research interests focus on lifespan sexual abuse trauma and experiences of psychotherapy.
Thursday 6 July
11.45 – 12.30pm
Multiple contributions of psychology to a ‘full stop to poverty’ – The role of psychological science, practice and professional associations
Tiago Pereira is an Executive Board Member and former Covid-19 Crisis Cabinet Coordinator of Portuguese Psychologists Association. He specialises in work, social, and organisations psychology and educational psychology. He is also a trainer, researcher and consultant in communication, leadership, team management, trust and health and public policies. He is a former Assistant Professor of the University of Évora (Portugal).
Wednesday 5 July
11.45am – 12.45pm
Climate change is more than a ‘crisis’:
Community psychology as a tool for collective action
Serdar M. Değirmencioğlu is a developmental psychologist by training and a community psychologist by conviction. He has produced ground-breaking work focusing on burning yet sorely neglected issues around the world (e.g., psychosocial consequences of personal debt) and in Turkey (e.g., young people’s participation, martyrdom/militarism, for-profit higher education and the decline of universities). He has served as a consultant to WHO, Unicef, and the Council of Europe. As a public scholar, he has contributed to policy debates and worked with labor unions and progressive municipalities in Turkey. He has been writing a Sunday column focused on children’s rights and well-being in a daily newspaper in Turkey since 2008.
He has served as president of the European Community Psychology Association and of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict & Violence (Peace Psychology). In 2020, he was awarded the Josephine “Scout” Wollman Fuller Award by Psychologists for Social Responsibility for his work on peace and social justice for children. In 2022, he was awarded the Outstanding Service Award by the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict & Violence (Peace Psychology).
He was full professor of psychology in Istanbul when he was fired in April 2016 for having signed a peace manifesto. In 2017, he was banned from public service for life. Forced to go in exile, he has held visiting positions in Cairo, Macerata, Brussels and Frankfurt. He continues his work at Goethe University Frankfurt a.M.
Tuesday 4 July
11.45am – 12.45pm
The power of psychology to improve people’s lives: Using what we know and applying what we have learned
Clinical and community psychologist, policymaker and health care innovator Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, is CEO of the American Psychological Association, the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. With over 146,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students as APA members, a top priority of Evans’ current work is applying psychological science and knowledge to a wide range of complex societal issues. Previously, for over two decades, Evans served in public policy positions in the city of Philadelphia and state of Connecticut, where he led the transformation of their behavioral health systems and their approaches to serving a wide range of individuals with complex needs. An unconventional leader, Evans has employed science, research, community activism, spirituality, traditional clinical care, policy, and cross-system collaborations to change the status quo around behavioral health. Throughout his career, Evans has authored or co-authored over 60 peer-reviewed research articles, chapters, reviews and editorials, held faculty appointments at several high-ranking institutions, and received national and international recognition for his work, including prestigious awards in government, healthcare service, visionary leadership, actionable advocacy, equity and social justice.
Wednesday 5 July
9.30 – 10.15am
Positive Technology: Uniting communities for a sustainable world (Aristotle Award)
Giuseppe Riva, Ph.D., is Director of the Humane Technology Lab. at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, where he is Full Professor of General & Cognitive Psychology Riva is also Director of the Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Laboratory (ATN-P Lab.) at the Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy). According to the scientific databases Scopus and ISI Web of Science, Riva is the scholar who authored the highest number of peer-reviewed scientific publications in the fields of “Virtual Reality” in the world. These papers range from specialist journals such as “Presence: Teleoperators and VR” (MIT Press) and “Journal of Internet Medical Research” to general scientific journals such as “Science” (AAAS), Nature, and American Psychologist (APA).
In this view, the main contribution of his research work, is related to the definition of a new research field in the early Nineties, within the domain of cognitive, clinical and social psychology: Cyberpsychology. Cyberpsychology is the study of the human mind and behavior and how the culture of technology, specifically, virtual reality, and social media affect them. In the last 25 years Riva transformed a smart intuition in a still-growing research area built around a worldwide community that has its reference points in the scientific journal – CyberPsychology, Behavioral and Social Networking – and conference – the Annual CyberPsychology, CyberTherapy & Social Networking Conference – he created and still coordinate today.
Wednesday 5 July
11.00 – 11.45am
Undergraduate Research Prize Address:
Yalla! Analysis of migratory phenomenon in the Neopolitan territory
Francesca Margherita De Falco, 22 years old, is a Master degree student in Clinical and Community Psychology at the University of Naples “Federico II”. During undergraduate studies, she has been interested in community psychology and started to take part in action-research projects, aiming to develop social inclusion and services organization. She’s a member of the Student-Faculty Joint Teaching Commission and a student representative of the Humanities Department. She’s also a volunteer of Universal Civil Service project, helping students carrying learning and neurodevelopmental disorders during their university life.
Wednesday 5 July
9.30 – 10.15am
Psychology and policy making
Lisa has served as a Member of Parliament representing East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow since 2015 and is Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Psychology and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Health. Prior to election, Lisa worked as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the Community NHS Forensic Mental Health Service and was Director of a local small business Psychological Services Scotland Ltd.
Lisa led the Addictions Service in NHS Lanarkshire, then went to work at The State Hospital as the Consultant Lead for the Forensic Addiction Service and Consultant Lead for the Forensic Psychology Service in NHS Argyll & Clyde. During her NHS career, Lisa was a shop steward with Unite the Union for a period of fourteen years.
Thursday 6 July
10.30 – 11.30am
