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IAPS virtual conference looks to more sustainable societies

Dr Tony Craig, head of our SEGS department and IAPS president
“The conference underlines the need to act beyond immediate needs and concerns, and to take responsibility for those who will follow the current generations, and who will have less time to react to the world bequeathed to them”

The International Association for People-environment Studies (IAPS), currently presided by Dr Tony Craig, head of our Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences department, begins its conference today. The conference theme, “Running out of time: setting the pace for future generations”, stresses the urgency of progressing towards more sustainable societies, of changes to improve people’s quality of life, of reducing social and population inequalities, and of healing our planet. The conference also focuses on where and how to implement these changes.  

Due to take place in Quebec City this week, the event has engineered a switch to virtual participation and delivery.

“The COVID-19 situation required us to rapidly re-plan this conference, and the conference organisers have done an amazing job converting the conference into the first fully-virtual IAPS conference, celebrating 50 years of people-environment studies,” notes Dr Craig.

The discipline of people-environment relations emerged from a pressing need to bring together researchers and professionals from the social sciences and humanities with those involved in building science, design and environmental planning to tackle urban problems and environmental issues. While physical space has long been considered an essential parameter, there has been less consideration of time as a factor in these issues. Today, time increasingly shapes people’s lives and their interactions with the environment, and our societies face urgent problems that demand rapid adaptation in the short term, but with long term perspectives.

The 2020 IAPS conference addresses how time affects the uses and representations of the built and natural environment, how it conditions the flows of people, goods and information and weighs on ageing infrastructures. 

“The conference underlines the need to act beyond immediate needs and concerns, and to take responsibility for those who will follow the current generations, and who will have less time to react to the world bequeathed to them,” concludes Dr Craig.

For more information, visit the IAPS website.

Press and media enquiries: 

Bernardo Rodriguez-Salcedo, Media Manager, Tel: +44 (0)1224 395089 (direct line), +44 (0)344 928 5428 (switchboard) or +44 (0)7791 193918 (mobile).


Printed from /news/iaps-virtual-conference-looks-more-sustainable-societies on 19/03/24 11:36:54 AM

The James Hutton Research Institute is the result of the merger in April 2011 of MLURI and SCRI. This merger formed a new powerhouse for research into food, land use, and climate change.