IAFOR > The European Conference on the Social Sciences (ECSS) > ECSS2018

ECSS2018

"Surviving and Thriving: In Pursuit of a Sustainable World"

July 6–7, 2018 | The Jurys Inn Brighton Waterfront, Brighton, UK

Religious, cultural and societal fractures have seen rises in authoritarianism and nationalism across the world, and threats and perceived threats have been used to justify the stifling and marginalisation of voices of opposition and dissent. Hard-won progress and freedoms are being questioned and undermined, and questions of peace, security and human security abound. In this period of great global social, economic, political and environmental instability, the future is for many a place of great uncertainty and fear.

However, in any period of great change, and undoubted challenge, there is also a great opportunity to harness and nurture these forces. The future is not yet written, and the powerful heuristic of sustainability has become a reality in many areas, where human creativity, imagination and technological advances have helped to make the world a better place. From small individual initiatives within families, communities and places of work, to the larger and more long-term development initiatives of governments and supranational institutions, exemplified by the UN’s 2030 goals, human resourcefulness is being used in pursuit of the common goal of a sustainable world.

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Programme

  • HIV – Environmental Phenomenon or Bodily Harm?
    HIV – Environmental Phenomenon or Bodily Harm?
    Keynote Presentation: Matthew Weait
  • Contemporary Continuities: Racism, Populism and Migration
    Contemporary Continuities: Racism, Populism and Migration
    Keynote Presentation: Eddie Bruce-Jones
  • Innovation for Low Carbon Energy: Are Power Utilities Ready?
    Innovation for Low Carbon Energy: Are Power Utilities Ready?
    Keynote Presentation: Tom Houghton
  • IAFOR Silk Road Initiative Information Session
    IAFOR Silk Road Initiative Information Session
  • IAFOR Documentary Photography Award 2017
    IAFOR Documentary Photography Award 2017
    Award Winners Screening

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Speakers

  • Matthew Weait
    Matthew Weait
    University of Portsmouth, UK
  • Tom Houghton
    Tom Houghton
    Curtin University, Australia
  • Eddie Bruce-Jones
    Eddie Bruce-Jones
    Birkbeck College School of Law, University of London, UK

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Organising Committee

The Conference Programme Committee is composed of distinguished academics who are experts in their fields. Conference Programme Committee members may also be members of IAFOR's International Academic Board. The Organising Committee is responsible for nominating and vetting Keynote and Featured Speakers; developing the conference programme, including special workshops, panels, targeted sessions, and so forth; event outreach and promotion; recommending and attracting future Conference Programme Committee members; working with IAFOR to select PhD students and early career academics for IAFOR-funded grants and scholarships; and overseeing the reviewing of abstracts submitted to the conference.

  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    Kingston University, UK
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Tom Houghton
    Tom Houghton
    Curtin University, Australia
  • Kwame Akyeampong
    Kwame Akyeampong
    University of Sussex, UK
  • Ljiljana Markovic
    Ljiljana Markovic
    University of Belgrade, Serbia
  • Eddie Bruce-Jones
    Eddie Bruce-Jones
    Birkbeck College School of Law, University of London, UK
  • James W. McNally
    James W. McNally
    University of Michigan, USA & NACDA Program on Aging
  • Evangelia Chrysikou
    Evangelia Chrysikou
    University College London, UK

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Review Committee

Dr Carl Fraser, Coventry University, United Kingdom
Dr Halina Sendera Mohd. Yakin, University of Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia
Dr Joanna Kepka, University of Nevada, United States
Professor Jose Miguel Soares, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Dr Mohammed Al Bhadily, Curtin University, Australia
Professor Nick Kontogeorgopoulos, University of Puget Sound, United States
Dr Tarek DJeddi, High National School of Statistics and Applied Economics, Algeria
Dr Luay Jum'A, German Jordanian University, Jordan

IAFOR's peer review process, which involves both reciprocal review and the use of Review Committees, is overseen by conference Organising Committee members under the guidance of the Academic Governing Board. Review Committee members are established academics who hold PhDs or other terminal degrees in their fields and who have previous peer review experience.

If you would like to apply to serve on the ECSS2019 Review Committee, please visit our application page.

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HIV – Environmental Phenomenon or Bodily Harm?
Keynote Presentation: Matthew Weait

Across the world, countries criminalize people who intentionally or recklessly expose others to the risk of acquiring HIV, or who in fact transmit HIV to them. The rationale for such criminalization typically centers on the harmfulness of HIV - and that it is not only morally wrong to cause, or risk causing, HIV infection but that the state has a legitimate justification for using the criminal law in the service of protecting and promoting public health. In this talk, I will explore the basis for, and the history of, the criminalization of HIV, but argue that – for the purposes of the criminal law, but not for those relating to the allocation of resources for prevention and treatment – it may be possible to "de-harm" HIV by acknowledging that it is, fundamentally, an environmental phenomenon and should be treated as such. The argument is, and is intended to be, a provocative one, but one which might enable us to reduce and ultimately eliminate HIV-related stigma – something that is demonstrably correlated with a poorer health outcome for people living with HIV, and those in key populations (such as drug users and sex workers) who are at increased risk of infection.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Contemporary Continuities: Racism, Populism and Migration
Keynote Presentation: Eddie Bruce-Jones

From a legal-historical perspective, it is not difficult to draw the lines from the early 20th-Century populism of the great wars to contemporary expressions of populism in Europe and the United States: from the scaling back of civil liberties, to the broadening forms of surveillance, to the curtailment of free movement, to an emphasis on the carceral capacity of the state. However, it is important not to provincialise or exceptionalise this social and political trajectory. It is imperative to consider global forms of colonialism in this context as productive of the continuities of racism and populism. It is equally important to examine the ways in which such continuities we now face themselves affect the ways we produce knowledge within the academy.

In this talk, Bruce-Jones will introduce several vignettes from his research on British colonial indenture in South Asia and racial discrimination in Europe to unpack how historical colonial racial and labour relations shape not only the way we view our history and contemporary citizenship, but also the very terms in which we are able to gain access to that history as researchers, writers and thinkers. He will engage with law, social science, critical theory and literature and ultimately posit that some of the most meaningful questions we ask of our work as academics in the 21st Century demand a constant triangulation between and transcendence of the rigid constraints of our disciplines.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Innovation for Low Carbon Energy: Are Power Utilities Ready?
Keynote Presentation: Tom Houghton

The electricity sector is experiencing a period of unprecedented change with factors such as the shift to low carbon energy and increasingly volatile fossil fuel markets creating challenging conditions for established utilities. Often seen as poorly equipped to meet these challenges, utilities must nevertheless innovate in order to address this squeeze, frequently referred to in terms of a “death-spiral” for incumbent firms. In this paper, we discuss different approaches to innovation, focusing particularly on the role of strategic networks in providing firms with cost-effective means to meet the challenges associated with issues such as shortening development cycles. We present some examples of how companies in the power sector are attempting to use these approaches and discuss the implications of this in terms of approaches to collaboration, capacity building and internal processes.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

IAFOR Silk Road Initiative Information Session

As an organization, IAFOR’s mission is to promote international exchange, facilitate intercultural awareness, encourage interdisciplinary discussion, and generate and share new knowledge. In 2018, we are excited to launch a major new and ambitious international, intercultural and interdisciplinary research initiative which uses the silk road trade routes as a lens through which to study some of the world’s largest historical and contemporary geopolitical trends, shifts and exchanges.

IAFOR is headquartered in Japan, and the 2018 inauguration of this project aligns with the 150th Anniversary of the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when Japan opened its doors to the trade and ideas that would precipitate its rapid modernisation and its emergence as a global power. At a time when global trends can seem unpredictable, and futures fearful, the IAFOR Silk Road Initiative gives the opportunity to revisit the question of the impact of international relations from a long-term perspective.

This ambitious initiative will encourage individuals and institutions working across the world to support and undertake research centring on the contact between countries and regions in Europe and Asia – from Gibraltar to Japan – and the maritime routes that went beyond, into the South-East Continent and the Philippines, and later out into the Pacific Islands and the United States. The IAFOR Silk Road Initiative will be concerned with all aspects of this contact, and will examine both material and intellectual traces, as well as consequences.

For more information about the IAFOR Silk Road Initiative, click here.

IAFOR Documentary Photography Award 2017
Award Winners Screening

The IAFOR Documentary Photography Award was launched by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) in 2015 as an international photography award that seeks to promote and assist in the professional development of emerging documentary photographers and photojournalists. The award has benefitted since the outset from the expertise of an outstanding panel of internationally renowned photographers, including Dr Paul Lowe as the Founding Judge, and Ed Kashi, Monica Allende, Simon Roberts, Jocelyn Bain Hogg, Simon Norfolk and Emma Bowkett as Guest Judges. Now in its third year, the award has already been widely recognised by those in the industry and has been supported by World Press Photo, Metro Imaging, MediaStorm, Think Tank Photo, University of the Arts London, RMIT University, British Journal of Photography, The Centre for Documentary Practice, and the Medill School of Journalism.

As an organisation, IAFOR’s mission is to promote international exchange, facilitate intercultural awareness, encourage interdisciplinary discussion, and generate and share new knowledge. In keeping with this mission, in appreciation of the great value of photography as a medium that can be shared across borders of language, culture and nation, and to influence and inform our academic work and programmes, the IAFOR Documentary Photography Award was launched as a competition that would help underline the importance of the organisation’s aims, and would promote and recognise best practice and excellence.

Winners of the IAFOR Documentary Photography Award 2017 were announced at The European Conference on Media, Communication & Film 2017 (EuroMedia2017) in Brighton, UK. The award follows the theme of the EuroMedia conference, with 2017’s theme being “History, Story, Narrative”. In support of up-and-coming talent, the IAFOR Documentary Photography Award is free to enter.

Access to the Award Winners Screening is included in the conference registration fee. For more information about the award, click here.

Image | From the project Single Mothers of Afghanistan by IAFOR Documentary Photography Award 2017 Grand Prize Winner, Kiana Hayeri.

Matthew Weait
University of Portsmouth, UK

Biography

Matthew Weait is Professor of Law and Society, and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Portsmouth. He studied law and criminology at the University of Cambridge, and gained his DPhil from the University of Oxford. He qualified as a barrister and is a Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. In 2017 he was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has worked at a number of universities, including Oxford, Keele, and Birkbeck, University of London - where he was a founder member of the Law Department. He has held visiting positions at Oxford, Cardozo Law School, the American Bar Foundation, and the University of British Columbia. Matthew’s research is concerned with the impact of law, especially criminal law and criminal justice process, on people living with HIV and AIDS and on efforts to prevent the spread of HIV. He has been a consultant for UNAIDS and was a member of the Technical Advisory Group for the Global Commission on HIV and Law, which reported in 2012. He is an advisor to the European AIDS Treatment Group, and a trustee of Watipa – a charity that provides educational opportunities to young people in developing countries.

Keynote Presentation (2018) | HIV – Environmental Phenomenon or Bodily Harm?
Tom Houghton
Curtin University, Australia

Biography

Dr Tom Houghton is Director of the MBA (Oil & Gas) at Curtin Graduate School of Business, Australia, and was previously a Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde, UK. His principal field of research is sustainable energy economics and he has a keen interest in energy for development, having established a training program in Renewable Energy for Developing Countries with UNITAR. Dr Houghton is a Visiting Professor at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Japan, where he provides courses in sustainable energy to MBA students. Before joining Strathclyde he spent more than five years in the power industry and a further eight in the banking sector, latterly as director at the Japanese bank Nomura. With colleagues in Asia and the United States, he established a consulting company in the renewable energy sector in 2011. Dr Houghton holds an MEng from Imperial College, an MBA from London Business School and a PhD from the University of Strathclyde.

Featured Presentation (2019) | Ensuring Equality from the “Low Carbon Dividend”

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2018) | Innovation for Low Carbon Energy: Are Power Utilities Ready?
Eddie Bruce-Jones
Birkbeck College School of Law, University of London, UK

Biography

Eddie Bruce-Jones (DPhil, Berlin; LLM, KCL; JD, Columbia; MA, Berlin; AB, Harvard) is Deputy Dean at Birkbeck College School of Law, University of London, where he teaches and researches in the areas of human rights, European law, legal theory, equality law and legal anthropology. He is author of Race in the Shadow of Law: State Violence in Contemporary Europe (Routledge, 2016), and co-author of the forthcoming Anti-Discrimination Law: Texts, Cases and Materials, 3rd Edition (with Aileen McColgan, Hart, 2019). His scholarly writing can be found in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Race & Class and the UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs. He currently serves as Assistant Director of Birkbeck’s Centre for Critical European Law and is a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, in Frankfurt, Germany, for his ongoing research on the British colonial indenture system. He is a member of the New York Bar and an Associate Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. He serves on the Board of Governors of Birkbeck College, the Editorial Board of the Journal of Asylum, Immigration and Nationality Law, the Board of Trustees of the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group and the Board of Directors of the Institute of Race Relations.

Keynote Presentation (2018) | Contemporary Continuities: Racism, Populism and Migration
Anne Boddington
Kingston University, UK

Biography

Anne Boddington is Professor of Design Innovation, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business and Innovation at Kingston University in the UK and recently appointed as the Sub Panel Chair for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory for the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. Professor Boddington has extensive experience of the leadership, management and evaluation of art and design education and art and design research in higher education across the UK and internationally. She is an experienced chair and has held trustee and governance roles across the creative and cultural sector including as trustee of the Design Council, an independent Governor, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), an affiliate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a member of the executive of the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design (CHEAD) and a member of the advisory board of the Arts & Humanities Research Council. She has an international reputation in creative education and research and has been a partner, a collaborator, a reviewer and evaluator for a wide range of international projects and reviews across Dofferemt nations in Europe, the Middle East, Southern and east Asia and North America.

Plenary Panel Presentation (2017) | Sustaining the City
Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s business and academic operations, including research, publications and events.

Dr Haldane holds a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the University of Paris XII Paris-Est Créteil (France), Sciences Po Paris (France), and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France), The School of Journalism at Sciences Po Paris (France), and the School of Journalism at Moscow State University (Russia).

Dr Haldane’s current research concentrates on post-war and contemporary politics and international affairs, and since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within Osaka University.

He is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade, a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the College of Education of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance.

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu Region) and he is currently a Trustee of the HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015.

A black belt in judo, he is married with two children, and lives in Japan.

Tom Houghton
Curtin University, Australia

Biography

Dr Tom Houghton is Director of the MBA (Oil & Gas) at Curtin Graduate School of Business, Australia, and was previously a Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde, UK. His principal field of research is sustainable energy economics and he has a keen interest in energy for development, having established a training program in Renewable Energy for Developing Countries with UNITAR. Dr Houghton is a Visiting Professor at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Japan, where he provides courses in sustainable energy to MBA students. Before joining Strathclyde he spent more than five years in the power industry and a further eight in the banking sector, latterly as director at the Japanese bank Nomura. With colleagues in Asia and the United States, he established a consulting company in the renewable energy sector in 2011. Dr Houghton holds an MEng from Imperial College, an MBA from London Business School and a PhD from the University of Strathclyde.

Featured Presentation (2019) | Ensuring Equality from the “Low Carbon Dividend”

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2018) | Innovation for Low Carbon Energy: Are Power Utilities Ready?
Kwame Akyeampong
University of Sussex, UK

Biography

Kwame Akyeampong is Professor of International Education and Development at the Centre for International Education (CIE), University of Sussex, UK. He has international research experience in educational evaluation and research and has worked on education and development research projects in a range of countries including Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda and Malawi. His research interests include education policy analysis, teacher governance, educational access and equity, impact evaluation studies in education, and employing quantitative and qualitative research methods. He also has experience managing large research education projects. He has consulted for the World Bank, DFID, and JICA on education evaluation projects and programmes. He was senior policy analyst with UNESCO, Paris, from 2011 to 2013. He is currently the co-chair of the Teacher Alliance for the Global Education and Skills Forum.

Previous IAFOR Presentations

Plenary Panel II (ECE2017) | Education for Change: Addressing the Challenges of UN Sustainable Development Goal 4
Ljiljana Markovic
University of Belgrade, Serbia

Biography

Dr Ljiljana Markovic is Dean, Chairperson of the Doctoral Studies Program and Full Professor in Japanese Studies at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. She has previously served as Vice Dean for Financial Affairs, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade (2008-2016). She holds the positions of Chairperson of the Association of Japanologists of Serbia, Member of the University of Belgrade Council, Chairperson of the University of Belgrade SYLFF Committee, Member of the Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Bilingual Education Board, and Member of the Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Culture, Committee on Books Procurement for Public Libraries. In 2010 she received the Gaimu Daijin Sho Award from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and in 2011 she received the Dositej Obradovic Award for Pedagogical Achievement. She is the author of a large number of publications in the fields of Japanese studies and economics.

Eddie Bruce-Jones
Birkbeck College School of Law, University of London, UK

Biography

Eddie Bruce-Jones (DPhil, Berlin; LLM, KCL; JD, Columbia; MA, Berlin; AB, Harvard) is Deputy Dean at Birkbeck College School of Law, University of London, where he teaches and researches in the areas of human rights, European law, legal theory, equality law and legal anthropology. He is author of Race in the Shadow of Law: State Violence in Contemporary Europe (Routledge, 2016), and co-author of the forthcoming Anti-Discrimination Law: Texts, Cases and Materials, 3rd Edition (with Aileen McColgan, Hart, 2019). His scholarly writing can be found in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Race & Class and the UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs. He currently serves as Assistant Director of Birkbeck’s Centre for Critical European Law and is a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, in Frankfurt, Germany, for his ongoing research on the British colonial indenture system. He is a member of the New York Bar and an Associate Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. He serves on the Board of Governors of Birkbeck College, the Editorial Board of the Journal of Asylum, Immigration and Nationality Law, the Board of Trustees of the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group and the Board of Directors of the Institute of Race Relations.

Keynote Presentation (2018) | Contemporary Continuities: Racism, Populism and Migration
James W. McNally
University of Michigan, USA & NACDA Program on Aging

Biography

Dr James W. McNally is the Director of the NACDA Program on Aging, a data archive containing over 1,500 studies related to health and the aging lifecourse. He currently does methodological research on the improvement and enhancement of secondary research data and has been cited as an expert authority on data imputation. Dr McNally has directed the NACDA Program on Aging since 1998 and has seen the archive significantly increase its holdings with a growing collection of seminal studies on the aging lifecourse, health, retirement and international aspects of aging. He has spent much of his career addressing methodological issues with a specific focus on specialized application of incomplete or deficient data and the enhancement of secondary data for research applications. Dr McNally has also worked extensively on issues related to international aging and changing perspectives on the role of family support in the later stages of the aging lifecourse.

Evangelia Chrysikou
University College London, UK

Biography

Dr Evangelia Chrysikou is registered architect and senior research fellow at UCL. She owns the awarded SynThesis Architects (London – Athens), that specialises in medical facilities. Her work received prestigious awards (Singapore 2009, Kuala Lumpur 2012, Brisbane 2013, Birmingham 2014, London 2014). Parallel activities include teaching at medical and architectural schools, research (UK, France, Belgium, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Greece and the Middle East) and advisory. She advised the Hellenic Secretary of Health and is the author of the new national guidelines for mental health facilities. Dr Chrysikou is the author of the book ‘Architecture for Psychiatric Environments and Therapeutic Spaces’, healthcare architecture editor, reviewer, active member of several professional and scientific associations and a TED-MED speaker. She is a Trustee, Member of the Board and Director of Research at DIMHN (UK) and Member of the Board at the Scholar’s Association Onassis Foundation.

Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | East Meets West – Healthy, Active and Beautiful Aging in Europe