The conference program worked out very well in Tampere this year. We had 140 presentations spanning regular papers, ignite talks, symposia, research workshops and panel discussions, involving both experienced researchers and members of the network, and emerging researchers.
The conference began with an opening event, organized as the Tuesday Morning Workshop. The topic this year was ‘Notions of Quality and Criticality in Environmental and Sustainability Education Research.’ First, the link convenors gave a short introduction to the event and welcomed new researchers. The workshop then began with a group discussion in which participants were asked to discuss the main criteria for identifying quality in ESE research and to share an example from our field (a publication, a project, an initiative, etc.) that they admire, explaining why. Afterwards, we continued with three ignite talks: 1) Quality care and critical friends, by Katrien van Poeck, Ghent University 2) What counts as rigour in new evolving paradigms? By Haley Perkins and Sarah Sharp, University of Cambridge 3) Quality within the plurality of ESE research, by Alan Reid, Monash University and editor of Environmental Education Research. Following the ignite talks, we had a second round of discussion, based on prompts prepared in advance. We closed the session with a concluding plenary, in which concerns related to NW30 ‘Guidelines for judgement of ESER proposals’, which elaborate on the general EERA guidelines, were shared and discussed. In the business meeting on 20th September, the network mandated the convenor group to continue the process of revising these guidelines.
In collaboration with the Finnish ESER network SIRENE and its chair Essi Aarnio-Linnanvuori, we organized a social event in Tampere on the evening of Wednesday 19 August, which brought together members of ESER NW30.
On Thursday we held the network meeting, where we shared updates on network activities, elected new co-convenors, and discussed possible future activities.
Our network continues to grow. We now have 589 members on our mailing list which is sent out every 6 weeks to share news across the field. One co-convenor was re-elected in the business meeting (Karen Elizabeth Jordan) and two new co-convenors were elected (Niina Mykrä and Sophia Georgescu). We also expressed our appreciation to Maarten Deleye (Ghent University), who has stepped down, for his engagement and valuable contributions to the convenor group and Elsa Lee, who has also stepped down after serving over the past year as a deputy supporting the new link convenors. The nomination of Elsa Lee as an Honorary member was unanimously approved by the business meeting and is passed on to the EERA council by the link convenors on behalf of NW30.