It has been a year since I reported the activities of the Executive
Committee (EC) in the 2015 ISSBD Bulletin. During this period,
we have been working on conferences and workshops, membership,
fellowship and award programs, and some other tasks. In
this President’s Note, I will describe the major activities that we
have planned and carried out.
Before I provide specific details, I would like to thank the
past president, Wolfgang Schneider, and all the members on the
previous ISSBD Committees, for their wonderful work for the
last several years. I am certain that they will continue to make
contributions to the society in different roles in the future.
I would also like to thank Livia Melandri from SAGE who has
helped with publications, membership, and many other regular
activities of ISSBD.
We now have complete information about the ISSBD biennial
meeting in Shanghai in 2014. Over 550 delegates from
approximately 50 countries and regions attended the meeting.
The final Invited Program consisted of 5 keynote presentations,
8 invited presentations, and 7 invited symposia. At the meeting,
67 symposia, 7 poster workshops, and 475 posters were presented.
The organizers managed to reach a financial balance for
the meeting. Congratulations again to Professor Biao Sang and
his team for successfully organizing the meeting.
The preconference workshops were organized by the International
Program Committee, chaired by Professors Dan Li, Junsheng
Liu, Suman Verma, Marcel van Aken, and Julie Bowker.
Five preconference workshops were conducted at Shanghai
Normal University. More than 100 early career scholars from
many different countries attended the workshops, with the support
of grants from the Jacobs Foundation and ISSBD.
The 2016 biennial meeting was held in Vilnius, Lithuania.
The conference chair, Rita Zukauskiene, and her organizing
team put together a strong scientific program including 5 keynote
and 5 invited talks, and 7 invited symposia. In addition to
regular symposium and poster sessions, the scientific program
included several special sessions for early career scholars and
symposia jointly organized by ISSBD and other societies (the
European Association for Developmental Psychology, the Association
for Psychological Science). The organizer also arranged a
very interesting social program including an opening ceremony,
receptions, and a banquet. We will receive a full report from the
organizer later, but my own experiences and the feedback I
received from many delegates clearly indicated that the meeting
was a great success. Thank you, Rita and the team, for your hard
and effective work!
As was done for previous meetings, several preconference
workshops were organized in Vilnius by the preconference
workshop committee, chaired by Marcel van Aken. The workshop
topics included longitudinal methods (Elisabetta Crocetti);
adapting tests for use in other cultures (Fons van de Vijver); publishing
(Robert Kail); policy, and translating science for the public
(Ariel Kalil); and new and needed directions for the study and
development of emotion regulation (Pamela Cole). The Jacobs
foundation has provided funds to support early career scholars
from different countries to attend the workshops. Julie Bowker
and the travel grant committee have handled the application,
review, and communications regarding financial support. Many
thanks to Marcel and Julie and their committees for the huge
amount of work they have put in on workshops! Also, thanks
to the Jacobs Foundation for its generous support for the events.
The 2018 meeting in Gold Coast, Australia, is in very good
shape. Melanie Zimmer-Gembeck and her colleagues at Griffith
University have been working hard and have been quite successful
in securing grants from the local organizations and promoting the meeting. They are currently working on the invited program.
We will have more information about the progress later.
Thomas Kindermann, Ellen Skinner, and Lew Bank at Portland
State University submitted a proposal for the 2020 biennial
meeting. The Executive Committee discussed and approved the
proposal. Thomas and his colleagues are currently exploring
various practical issues that may be involved in the meeting. It
has been over 20 years since the biennial meeting was last held
in the United States (Minneapolis, 1991). The location should
be attractive to scholars in many other countries. More importantly,
it would be helpful for ISSBD to connect with young scholars
in the United States.
We had two regional workshops in 2015. One of them was
on ‘‘Behavioral Development: A Lifespan Perspective’’ in Geneva
in September, co-sponsored by the Jacobs Foundation with
a grant to cover the expenses for 10 JF/ISSBD fellows, and other
aspects of the workshop. Another workshop, ‘‘Advancing
Research on Vulnerable Populations by Early- to Mid-Career
Scholars in Africa’’ (Developmental Research on Vulnerable
Populations), was held in Nairobi, Kenya in November.
We have approved two workshops, one in Thailand in 2017,
hosted by Prince of Songkla University, on school safety and
school climate, and the other in Bandung, Indonesia, hosted by
Padjadjaran University, on Values and the Development of
Southeast Asian Youth, in 2017. We are expecting a couple of
additional proposals for regional workshops in the next few
years. I believe these workshops will be helpful in promoting
ISSBD, especially its membership, in these regions.
The Jacobs Foundation Board of Trustees approved the support
for the new cohort of ISSBD-Jacobs Fellows and grants for
ISSBD regional workshops in 2015 and 2017 and travel grants for
young scholars’ travel to the 2016 ISSBD meeting. The fellowship
committee, chaired by Toni Antonucci, reviewed the applications
and selected 10 JF/ISSBD fellows from different countries.
In addition, Peter Smith and his committee reviewed applications
for the ISSBD Developing Country Fellowship (DCF).
Three new fellows were selected from Kenya, Panama, and
Romania. Many thanks to Toni and Peter and their committees
for their help with these programs.
ISSBD recently established a new award, titled ISSBD Fellows.
The Fellow status is awarded to ISSBD Members who have
made sustained outstanding contributions to the field of lifespan
human development in the areas of research and/or application.
ISSBD Fellows are viewed as representatives of international
scholars and international contributions to the advancement of
the field. The first cohort of the Fellows received the award at the
Award Ceremony in Vilius.
The Association for Psychological Science (APS) and the
European Association for Developmental Psychology (EADP)
contacted us for potential collaboration between the societies.
We discussed a variety of possible activities such as helping each
other on membership, and holding joint meetings and workshops.
As a first step, we agreed to hold joint sessions at the
meetings of our societies. As a result, we arranged two special
symposia at the Vilnius meeting, co-organized by ISSBD and
each of these societies. There will be similar sessions at the APS
meetings and EADP meetings in the future. We will see how
these sessions go and consider means to expand our collaboration
with these and other societies.
We agreed to participate in the International Consortiumof
Developmental Sciences Societies (ICDSS). Marcel van Aken
and I attended a couple of the meetings for this consortium.
The first major task was to jointly write a position paper on the
to implications of migration, climate change, and disaster for
human development. Marcel organized this activity for ISSBD,
and several members, including Suman Verma and Catherine
Cooper (Optimizing Development Following Disasters and Traumatic
Experiences among Children, Adolescents, and Adults:
Useful Frameworks and Promising Research Directions), Jeanette
Lawrence, Colette Daiute, and Marilza De Souza (A Developmental
Science Approach To Migration), and Ann Sanson (Developmental
science’s role in responding to the climate crisis) took
the lead in preparing the submissions for ISSBD. Thank you all
very much for your participation and help. ICDSS will hold a Consensus Conference in February 2017 in Utrecht, Netherlands,
hosted by Marcel van Aken. We will receive information about
this conference in the near future.
As always, I encourage all of you to actively participate in
ISSBD activities, which will make a difference in ISSBD and perhaps
beyond. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please do not
hesitate to contact us.
Xinyin Chen
September, 2016