Conferences attended

We regularly speak at conferences around the world. We’ve listed a recent selection in reverse chronological order (most recent first).

November 2017

Urban Green Space for Health and Wellbeing Conference

Stockholm, Sweden

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – The Urban Landscape as a Place to Flourish: green space near to homes and daily life (invited speaker)

10th European Public Health Conference

Stockholm, Sweden

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – Improvements to Woods In and Around Towns: a natural experiment working with deprived communities (contribution to ‘Public Landscapes for Public Health’ workshop)

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – Woodland improvements in deprived urban communities: how does this build resilience? (contribution to ‘Building resilience and promoting well being’ workshop)


November 2016

European Public Health Association (EUPHA) Section on Public Mental Health –
Mental Health and Architecture (an EPHC pre-conference workshop)

Vienna, Austria

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – ‘Mood and Place’ (invited speaker)


October 2016

WHO Regional Office for Europe & WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Health Histories – Global Health Histories Seminar 99

Copenhagen, Denmark

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – ‘Cultural contexts of health: “Environment and Health”’ (expert speaker)


August / September 2016

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2016

London, UK

The MMP research team – Mapping brain imaging as a measure of emotional wellbeing in older people walking in different urban spaces (paper)

Dr Sara Tilley, Dr Eva Silveirinha de Oliveira and Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – Exploring parents’ perceptions and visits to local urban woodlands in deprived communities (paper)

The MMP research team – Living in the moment or experiences of a lifetime? Considering environmental influences past, present and future on mobility in older age (paper)

Dr Sara Tilley – Understanding the Multi-Level Forces Affecting Mobility Trends (paper)

Dr Sara Tilley – Time at the nexus: mobility and modal choice (session convenor and chair)


July 2016

45th Annual BSG Conference – Communities in Later Life: Engaging with Diversity

Stirling, UK

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – Lifetime experience or moment by moment? Environmental influences on mobility and mood in older age (plenary)

Dr Sara Tilley – Older people’s experiences of mobility and mood in an urban environment: a pilot protocol for comparing electroencephalography (EEG) information with self-reports (paper)


June 2016

Cambridge Real Estate Research Centre – Future Cities Conference 2016

Cambridge, UK

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – Urban green/blue space, resilience and human health (paper)


March 2016

American Association of Geographers’ (AAG) Annual Meeting

San Francisco, USA

Dr Katherine Brookfield – Everyday aspects of urban environments and older adults’ outdoor mobility (paper)

Dr Sara Tilley – Mobility choices in older adults: the role of emotional responses to place (paper)


January 2016

ALR2016, the Active Living Research Annual Conference

Florida, USA

Dr Katherine Brookfield – Ageing and active living: Everyday aspects of urban environments and older adults’ outdoor mobility (paper)

Dr Sara Tilley – Mobility choices in older adults: The role of emotional responses to place, S. Tilley, University of Edinburgh (paper)


November 2015

ECBCC 2015 – the third European Conference on Biodiversity and Climate Change

Bonn, Germany

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – Nature-based solutions as inclusive spaces: Links to people’s health, wellbeing and quality of life (keynote)


CHI 2015 – the fourth international City Health Conference

Barcelona, Spain

Dr Sara Tilley, Dr Eva Silveirinha de Oliverira and Professor Catharine Ward Thompson –  Improving the physical appearance and social perceptions of woodlands in deprived communities: the experiences of parents and care-givers of children (paper)

Dr Katherine Brookfield –  Everyday aspects of the urban environment and older adults’ outdoor mobility (paper)


EUROCITIES 2015

Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmo, Sweden

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – ‘Roundtable: Urban Mobility’ (panellist)


1st Thematic Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons

Bologna, Italy

Dr Penny Travlou, Katalin Hausel and Jeff Andreoni – The Confluence of Urban Commoning: Making Common Space for Nomad Citizenship (paper)


October 2015

Society for all Ages III: Environment for Ageing

Moscow, Russia

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – ‘Community Space: Adapting Urban and Rural Environments for Ageing People’ (panellist)


September 2015

ECLAS 2015 – Landscapes in Flux

Tartu, Estonia

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – (keynote)

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – The role of social sciences in open space research (presentation)

Dr Eva Silveirinha de Oliveira and Dr Simon Bell – Immigrants in Lisbon – a cross-cultural comparison of the use of public spaces (paper)

Dr Eva Silveirinha de Oliveira, Dr Sara Tilley and Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – Does it really make a difference? Exploring changes in woodland’s use and perceptions (paper)

Matluba Khan and Dr Simon Bell – Improving children’s outdoor learning by design: a case study from Bangladesh (paper)

Matluba Khan, Dr Simon Bell and Dr Eva Silveirinha de Oliveira – Outdoor environments for primary school teaching and learning: An exploratory study (pecha kucha)

Azlina Aziz and Dr Simon Bell – Emotional wellbeing restoration of the visually impaired: the role of green space (paper)

Peeter Vassiljev, Dr Simon Bell and Janar Raet – Restorative value of pine forest compared with spruce forest: an experiment using an immersive, simulated, Estonian winter land (paper)

Fariba Bahrini and Dr Simon Bell – Use of public parks in an Islamic country in transition: a case study of the Islamic Republic of Iran (paper)


Wellbeing by Design: creativity and collaboration in practice-based inquiry

Moray, Scotland

Dr Katherine Brookfield – Co-designing age-friendly environments with older adults and designers-in-training: successes, challenges and lessons (paper)


Hybrid City III: Data to the People

Athens, Greece

Dr Penny Travlou – P2P Ethnography in the Sharing City: Establishing a Methodology for the Study of Solidarity Economy, Urban Commoning and Nomad Citizenship (paper)

Dr Penny Travlou – Programme Committee member


August 2015

BCEP 2015 – the 11th Biennial Conference on Environmental Psychology

Groningen, The Netherlands

Dr Sara Tilley, Dr Eva Silveirinha de Oliverira and Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – The perceptions and frequency of visits to local urban woodlands in deprived communities amongst parents and care-givers of children (paper)


May 2015

EDRA46 – the 46th Annual Conference of the Environmental Design Research Association

Los Angeles, USA

Dr Eva Silveirinha de Oliveira, Professor Catharine Ward Thompson, Dr Simon Bell, Professor Peter Aspinall and Professor Jenny Roe – Recording and Assessing Environmental Quality in Woodlands: An Environmental Audit Tool (paper)

Dr Eva Silveirinha de Oliveira – ‘Urban Greening – Paper Session 2’ (chair)


April 2015

IAGG-ER 2015 – the eighth European Region congress of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics

Dublin, Ireland

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson – ‘Age-Friendliness, Well-Being and Mobility in Urban Neighbourhoods’ (panellist)


August 2014

Geographies of Co-Production – the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with IBG

London, UK

Dr Penny Travlou – Rhizomic Ethnographies: Doing Fieldwork With Creative Networked Communities of Digital Artists (paper)


March 2014

What I Know Is: A Research Symposium on Online Collaborative Knowledge Building

Stirling, Scotland

Dr Penny Travlou – Network Communities, Creativity and Spatiality (invited speaker)


November 2012

Remediating the Social

Edinburgh, Scotland

Dr Penny Travlou – Rhizomic Ethnographies: Rhizomes, Lines and Nomads (paper)