University of A Coruña (UDC)

The University of A Coruña is a relatively new university created in the early 1990s when it separated from the 500-year-old University of Santiago de Compostela. It has around 25,000 students and more than one hundred research groups. Within the University, the Department of Psychology is one of the more productive in terms of research, especially in the field of Environmental Psychology. The interdisciplinary People-Environment Research Group has a long trajectory of world-class research on the interactions between the natural and built environment and human behaviour and includes psychologists, sociologists, economists, educators, geographers and architects. Its areas of expertise include the psychological dimensions of social change and transitions to sustainable lifestyles, social innovation, environmental risk research, environmental education, the relationship between nature-based solutions, pro-environmental behaviour and wellbeing. For the last ten years, the Group has both coordinated and participated in numerous national and European research projects including FP7 and H2020 EU-funded programs (see below for a few examples). Its members have consolidated expertise in both qualitative and quantitative methods of research as well as participatory scenario development methodologies such as back-casting scenarios. The group combines such applied research work with teaching and training of organizations and policy-makers to incorporate sustainability principles in their work. Researchers are active members of the International Association for People-Environment Studies – IAPS and the International Association of Applied Psychology, as well as of the International Association of Applied Psychology.