The Scientific Programme will focus on 6 main themes:
1 - Education as a way to social justice
2 - Community Resilience
3 - Integration of migrants in Europe
4 - Gender Equality
5 - Defying stigmas (drugs, sex workers, the homeless, LGBTQ+ community, former inmates...)
6 - Active Ageing
Check our social media and website regularly to see all updates and details on the Scientific Programme!
Highlight Speakers
Francisco Miranda Rodrigues
Francisco Miranda Rodrigues is a psychologist and a consultant in organizational development, leadership, personal, behaviour, and team effectiveness. He is a specialist in Work, Social, and Organizational Psychology and Health Occupational Psychology. Counselor at National Education Council (representing the Portuguese Council of Professional Associations). He is a member of the monitoring committee for the human capital operational program - POCH (EU funding) and member of the monitoring Committee of COMPETE (EU funding program)representing the Portuguese Council of Professional Associations. He was the Executive President of the first EFPA European Semester of Psychology (Portugal, Jul - Dec2015). He was the Executive Director (Apr 2010 - Dec 2016) and he is the current President of the Portuguese Psychologists Association (Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses) since January 2017.
Nicole Gale
Nicola Gale is the current Vice-President and Treasurer of EFPA (2019-2023). She also served the British Psychological Society in several roles including as President, Chair of the Representative Council, the Division of Counselling Psychology and various working groups, as well as member of the Professional Practice Board and representative on the Ethics Committee. An academician in City University London’s Department of Psychology, Gale is a senior lecturer on the Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology programme focusing on professional standards of practice in psychology, clinical practice and
supervision, diversity issues, equality and inclusion. Apart from her responsibilities with the British Psychological Society, Gale was clinical lead and head of service for an occupational health psychology service in the National Health Service. She has a background in human resources development as well as organisational development and training. Gale also served in professional services as a management consultant and as an accountant.
Cinzia Albanesi
Cinzia Albanesi is a Professor of Community Psychology at the University of Bologna and theDirector of School and Community Psychology master’s degree programme. Since 2018, she is the President of the European Association of Community Psychology (ECPA) and a Board Member of the European Association for Service Learning in Higher Education (EASLHE). She is a Board Member of the CSGE - Centre for Studies on Gender and Education (Department of Education, University of Bologna). Her more recent research interests include service-learning, citizenship education, university-community partnership for community development, well-being and social justice. She has done extensive research on sense of community and civic participation, conventional and unconventional form of participation, methods for community development and active citizenship, collaborative and participatory processes.
António Fonseca
António Fonseca is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of Portugal, in Porto. He has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and received his PhD from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar of the University of Porto in 2004. He is a specialist in Developmental Psychology, with a special focus on the aging process, and a consultant for the Social Cohesion and Integration Program (area of aging) of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. He is also a co-founder and a member of the Centre for Studies in Human Development and is currently involved in a research project called “Ageing in Place in Portugal”.
José Ornelas
José Ornelas is an Associate Professor with aggregation at the University Institute of Psychological, Social and Life Sciences (ISPA). Since 2014, he has been the representative of the Portuguese Psychologists' Association at the Standing Committee on Community Psychology. He is also a founding member of the European Community Psychology Association, as well as the Portuguese Society of Community Psychology, in which he is President, and the Association for the Study and Psychosocial Integration (AEIPS) where he has been researching and developing a community integration programme for people with mental illness.
He is a member of the Society for Community Research and Action, the 27th Division of the American Psychological Association, and also of the EU National Network, Joint Action on Mental Health and Well-being.
He was distinguished in 2011 with the Charity Award of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in 2013 with the Mediterranean award "Solidarietà Sociale" of La Fondazione Mediterraneo (Italy), in 2017 with the Career Award of ISPA - University Institute and in 2021 with the Lifetime Career Award of the European Association of Community Psychology.
The most frequent themes in his scientific and technological productions focus on Community Psychology, the Community Support System, as well as Community Partnerships and Community Development.
Isabel Menezes
Isabel Menezes has a degree and a PhD in Psychology and a habilitation in Educational Sciences from the University of Porto where she is a Professor in the Department of Educational Sciences. She teaches Educational Research, Community Intervention, Citizenship/Political Education and Political Psychology. Her past research focuses on civic and political participation of children, young people and adults, with a special interest in groups at risk of exclusion and the ways formal and non-formal education (including artistic) experiences can generate more complex ways of relating with the political. Her more recent research interests include doctoral education and university social responsibility as a way to explore how universities can creatively and proactively respond to societal challenges.
She coordinated several funded research projects including the Portuguese participation in international projects such as IEA Civic Education Study, FP7 PIDOP, and H2020 Catch-EyoU.
Andrea Khalfaoui
Andrea Khalfaoui (PhD) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh. She has developed her research line focused on interactive learning environments, early childhood education in culturally diverse contexts, especially with Roma, migrant children and families. She has published in the fields of early childhood education, Roma community, and family participation in schools. Andrea has participated in various competitive research projects both at the national and international levels. She has a strong commitment to the transfer of research and has delivered several training programs in schools in Brazil, Nicaragua, and in the Basque Country. Also, she provides scientific support to schools and local associations serving vulnerable groups such as the Roma.
Carl Harris
Carl Harris is a clinical and community psychologist living in Birmingham, UK with his partner and one of two children. He studied political economy and political philosophy before studying Psychology, qualified as a clinical psychologist in 1996 and has worked with children and families in deprived communities since that time. He has been a chair of a community development charity and is currently the chair of the Community Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society. He has learned a number of things during this time, particularly that psychologists rarely have the solutions to the challenges that people face but can make a contribution with the skills that they bring.
Francesca Esposito
Francesca Esposito completed her PhD in Community Psychology at the ISPA-University Institute of Lisbon. From 2019 to 2020 she was a British Academy Newton International Fellow at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford and in December 2020 she started her research contract at the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) of Lisbon. Her research focuses on border violence, particularly immigration detention, bottom-up forms of resistance, and solidarity against border control practices. Her current project “Making Gender Visible in Immigration Detention” looks at how the intersection of gendered, sexualised, and racialised constructions shape everyday life in detention.
She is currently an Associate Director at Border Criminologies, University of Oxford, a member of the Executive Board of the European Community Psychology Association (ECPA), and the Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed international journal Community Psychology in Global Perspective. Francesca also worked several years as an advocate for women survivors of gender-based violence including migrant women confined inside Rome's detention centre, in an NGO called Befree based in Rome.
Caterina Arcidiacono
A Psychologist and Psychoanalyst, Caterina Arcidiacono is a Full Professor of Community Psychology at the University of Naples Federico II, where she also coordinates the Laboratory of Community Psychology as well as the Psychology and Educational Sciences Section of the Department of Humanistic Studies of the University.
Her research activity is in the field of critical community psychology and qualitative research with a particular interest in the construction of well-being in social organisations at local and global levels. Her specific research interests include identity phenomena and intangible assets of places and local communities; gender asymmetry in male-female relations; gender-based violence against women; family ties, migration and intercultural dialogue.
She is a former president of the European Community Psychology Association (ECPA) and the Italian Community Psychology Association (SIPCO). She is also a member of the SC of Community Psychology of the EFPA (European Federation of Psychologists Association). She is the Editor in Chief of La Camera blu, an international journal of gender studies and Co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Community Psychology in Global Perspective. She has published over 100 articles in international databases and written numerous books including Psicologia per le città, Benessere e felicità, uscire dalla crisi globale; Legami resistenti, Sono caduta per le scale, Identità Femminile e psicoanalisi.
Tiago Pereira
Tiago Pereira is a psychologist and specialist in Educational Psychology and Work, Social and Organizations Psychology by the Portuguese Psychologists Association. He worked as a coordinator of social and community intervention projects including interventions in the school context. He was also an Assistant Professor at the University of Évora with responsibility in curricular units related to Educational Psychology and Social and Community Psychology. Also, within these areas, he is a trainer, researcher and consultant, and has developed work in the dimensions of communication, leadership, team management, and public policies. Ever since 2014, he has had several roles within the Portuguese Psychologists Association, such as COO, Head of Cabinet, and more recently an Executive Board Member as well as a temporary COVID-19 Crisis Cabinet Coordinator.
Geertrui Serneels
Geertrui Serneels has pioneered a culturally sensitive and community-based mental healthcare system for refugees and migrants in Europe. She has designed an outreaching methodology called PACCT (Psychiatry Assisting Culturally diverse populations in Creating Healing Ties), which has reached over 3,000 migrant and refugee children. It blends community-based care, psychology and intercultural dialogue and acts as a highly-trained mediating organization that helps translating mental health frameworks, allowing all parties to come to a collective agreement about the wellbeing and health of refugee and migrant children.
She aims to integrate psychological support into all work with refugee and migrant children to ensure they can flourish in their new communities. She has built partnerships with local and institutional stakeholders, offering specialized training to 16,000 professionals working directly with refugee and migrant children including teachers, tutors, educators, foster parents, lawyers, and social workers.
