Exchange led to study on what environmental psychology is

The University of Surrey has the oldest department of environmental psychology in Europe and one of the oldest in the world. When Amanda Gabriel ended up there as a visiting researcher a little over a year ago, she soon began a project to get to the bottom of what the subject of environmental psychology entails. Now she is back in Alnarp.

- Traditionally, since the 60s, environmental psychology has been a transdisciplinary subject. Now it leans more towards psychology and few in the field are in planning like we are at SLU. However, there are engineers, neuropsychologists and many more who work in environmental psychology. The field has grown considerably and is now found all over the world. Some researchers still believe that it is only about psychology while others believe that it must be transdisciplinary.

The project has included workshops with researchers to find keywords that can be linked to the field and a mapping of all scientific articles that have been published in the last 20 years. The many different ways in which research is being conducted in the subject have also led to interviews with 50 researchers worldwide.

Continuing for Urban Futures

While Amanda has lived in London and been a visiting researcher, she has continued in her role as coordinator for Urban Futures and lecturer at SLU. She now hopes that the proposal she has submitted to the ICEP conference in Latvia will be accepted. Then the results from the research project will be presented there.

– The project has attracted attention and I have received several international requests, for example to lecture in France and to write something together with Cornell University.

– I have seen how the University of Surrey structures the work, has many cultural projects and works practically with municipalities and cities. The exchange was very educational and productive, says Amanda Gabriel.