Small Meetings, Big Connections: The SPSSI–EASP International Conference Collaboration

Colette Van Laar, Ph.D., Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium

For many years, SPSSI and the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP) have joined forces to support international small group conferences. As Chair of SPSSI’s International Conference Committee, I have had the pleasure of seeing this collaboration bring together researchers from across countries, career stages, and sometimes disciplines to engage deeply with important social psychological questions.

The idea behind the program is simple. Each year, SPSSI and EASP jointly support one small group meeting, alternating between North America and Europe. Each organization contributes $3500, providing $7000 in total funding for the selected conference. Rather than creating another large conference where conversations often have to fit between packed programs and short presentation slots, these meetings provide the time and space for sustained discussion among a relatively small group of researchers.

Over the years, the program has supported meetings on an extraordinarily broad range of social issues. Topics have included intergroup contact; self-affirmation and educational inequalities; LGBTIQ+ identities and social change; prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup relations; gender and gender stereotyping; the Great Recession and social class divides; hate crime; the psychology of space and place; and socioeconomic disparities in education. What these very different meetings have in common is their potential to move an area of research forward by bringing together people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to spend concentrated time exchanging ideas.

Small group meetings can be particularly valuable for creating connections. Organizers deliberately bring together junior and senior scholars, researchers from different countries and sometimes disciplinary traditions, and scholars using different theoretical and methodological approaches. Meetings have been designed not simply around presenting completed work, but around discussion, workshopping emerging ideas, identifying new research questions, and developing collaborations. Several have explicitly aimed to generate joint research projects, and many have resulted in special issues in journals.

The international partnership is an important part of this. Alternating between North America and Europe and bringing together members of SPSSI and EASP creates opportunities to move beyond national research networks and perspectives. For social psychologists studying social issues that themselves cross national borders, such exchange is particularly valuable.

Our International Conference Committee reviews the proposals on the SPSSI side. I currently chair the committee together with Vicki Esses, Stefan Stürmer, Bonita London and Thekla Morgenroth. It is one of those committee roles in which reviewing proposals is especially enjoyable: we get an early look at ideas for meetings that may help shape where our field goes next.

So, if there is a topic on which you find yourself thinking, “We really need to get these people together in a room,” consider the SPSSI-EASP Small Group Conference Program. A small meeting can be the beginning of much bigger things.

back to menu