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Environmental Psychology at Surrey has
always sought to be a multidisciplinary research activity, driven by
psychological theories and methodologies but drawing on other social sciences as
well as the environmental and design disciplines. We enjoy active collaboration
with architects, planners, engineers and sociologists amongst others. We
investigate environment-behaviour relationships at every spatial scale and
environment from personal space and office design through neighbourhood renewal
to the public understanding of global climate change.
The Environmental
Psychology
Research
Group (EPRG) has been
undertaking research for more than thirty years and has gained an international
reputation, most recently recognised in the Department’s 5 rating in the most
recent HEFCE Research Assessment Exercise.
Research undertaken
by the EPRG is both ‘fundamental’ (i.e., contributing to the development of the
discipline and our understanding of psychological processes) and 'applied and
policy–oriented'. It is increasingly acknowledged that such research should be
directed not only to helping us understand society but offer guidance on how to
make it better. Both Government and business is
concerned with policy development and delivery, and it is increasingly
recognised that these can only be successfully achieved by informed
evidence.
Well designed and administered research
is essential for such an analysis.
We have a commitment
to make research not only useful but usable. We appreciate the need to both conduct and communicate
research in ways that our users find helpful.
We count amongst our
clients the European Commission, Central Government departments, County and
District Councils and industry. We are called to
give advice and contribute to policy-making across a broad span of
areas.
Within the last year we have given
evidence to the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Select Committee, as well as
contributed to seminars organised by the Sustainable Development Commission and
the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit.
Some members of the EPRG belong to other research groups in the
department such as the Social Psychology European Researach Institute (SPERI), Work and Health Research Group and the Food Consumer
Behaviour and Health Research Centre.
Environmental psychology researchers have
always enjoyed collaboration with other disciplines. Currently our researchers
are actively working with researchers in sociology, civil engineering and
biological sciences at this University. Furthermore, we also have
long-established links with the Department of Archaeology at the University of
Cambridge, Department of Architecture at the University of Strathclyde and the
Enterprise and Innovation Office at Anglia Polytechnic University.
The
environmental psychology community is strongly international and this is
reflected in the long-term active collaboration we enjoy with the Laboratoire de
Psychologie Environnementale, Université René Descartes-Paris V; Departamento de
Psicologia, Universidade de La Coruña; Departamento de Psicologia, Universidad de
Barcelona; Environmental Psychology Unit, School of Architecture, Lund Institute
of Technology; and the Centre of Environmental and Traffic Research, University of
Groningen. We are also currently participating in an EC funded project in which
we are collaborating with social and environmental scientists from Groningen,
Stockholm, Oslo, and Padova.
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