Unisa online - Unisa to feature prominently at the ICP

ARTS workshop group

With approximately 5000 delegates in attendance, the 30th International Congress of Psychology (ICP) taking place from 22 to 27 July 2012 at the Cape Town International Conference Centre will be the largest international psychology conference in Africa and the southern hemisphere.

Several staff from Unisa’s Institute of Social and Health Sciences (ISHS) and the Unisa-MRC Safety and Peace Promotion Research Unit (SAPPRU) are contributing to the ICP. Prof Kopano Ratele (Professor at the ISHS and SAPPRU Co-director) and Ms Shahnaaz Suffla (Honorary ISHS member and Senior Scientist at SAPPRU) are part of the Executive Committee, and Prof Mohamed Seedat (Professor and HOD at ISHS, and SAPPRU Director), will be delivering the only South African State-of-the-Science Lecture; entitled Mobilising compassionate critical citizenship and psychologies in the service of humanity. ISHS and SAPPRU staff are also serving on the scientific committee and as division chairs, and will be presenting at the conference. One of the presentations has been shortlisted as a finalist for PsySSA/Discovery Award for Best Psychologist Presentation.

Other key conference events include the Emerging Psychologists’ Programme and the Advanced Research Training Seminars (ARTS). For the Emerging Psychologists’ Programme, SAPPRU and ISHS will host 22 emerging psychologists from around the world that will include a site visit to its community-based project in Strand, with presentations by the community research team, as well as SAPPRU & ISHS staff. ARTS is a biennial programme for emerging scholars from low to middle income contexts. Prof Mohamed Seedat and Prof Sandy Lazarus (Professor Extraordinaris at ISHS and Senior Specialist Scientist at SAPPRU) are the convenors of one of the three ARTS offered at Stellenbosch University pre-ICP 2012. Their ARTS is entitled Research as Praxis: Action and Theory-Making and Application in Community Psychology Research.

The International Congress of Psychology, held every four years under the auspices of the International Union of Psychological Science, is the flagship event in international psychology. The 30th International Congress of Psychology is the first to be held in Africa, and is organised by the National Research Foundation of South Africa and the Psychological Society of South Africa, in partnership with key South African universities and the psychological associations of neighbouring countries. Organised around the theme Psychology Serving Humanity, the congress will highlight how psychology translates its science and practice into the knowledge, skills and tools that are able to underpin the human condition.