We hope everyone is happily researching away in our field of restorative environments. Do not forget to every now and then take a break and go out and experience restorative environments. As a matter of fact, why do we (we should know better!) not regularly take the opportunity to do so? “Busy, busy, busy…” When you start saying those three words, it is definitely time for a visit to a restorative environment!

In this newsletter you will find our usual content: spotlight member, new publications and achievements, news about conferences and there are some vacancies as well.

Besides that, we would like to inform you about some changes in the convening team and some ideas for network activities.

And: a call for expressions of interest to join in a symposium at ICEP2023 in Arhus, Denmark!

iapsREN convening team

After many years of service, Eleanor (Ellie) Ratcliffe (more than 4 years), Stephanie Wilkie and Kate Lee (both about 3 years) have decided to move on from the iapsREN convening team. We want to express our gratitude for all you have done over the years. It has been a good professional collaboration on the content and a very pleasant collaboration at that. Thank you and good luck in your next steps!

Marilisa Herchet (Technische Universität Dresden), Anna Bornioli (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Lewis Elliott (University of Exeter) have joined Robert van Dongen (Eindhoven University of Technology) to continue convening the restorative environments network. Great to have you on the team!

iapsREN activities

The new convening team has brainstormed on our current and possible future REN activities.
We will continue:

• The newsletter   (Robert & Anna)
• Twitter (follow us on @iapsREN)   (Anna)
• Coordinating contributions to conferences   (Marilisa & Robert)
• Online library   (Robert)
• Connection with IAPS & website there   (Lewis)
• Hosting the slack channel

In addition, we are going to organize the new:

• REN forum   (Marilisa & Lewis)

The REN forum aims to be somewhere where REN members (and indeed anyone external who is interested in restorative environments work) can pose issues related to restorative environments scholarship that they are working through and receive help and support from the rest of the network.

Alongside this, there will be opportunities to discuss collaborations and how we can all stay in touch. A REN forum will last an hour and be scheduled a couple of times a year with different timings to be inclusive of people’s varying time zones.

The first two of these meetings are already planned, so reserve them in your agenda:

• 30 November 2022; 10.30h CET
• 22 February 2023; 16.00h CET

You will receive a separate meeting invite for the forum.                     

iapsREN Slack channel

We have opened the IAPS Restorative Environments Network channel on Slack! This is a virtual group where iapsREN members can chat, share news & resources related to Restorative Environments research. If you haven’t done it already, you can join here.

Upcoming conferences

• International Conference on Environmental Psychology (ICEP), 20 – 23 June 2023, Arhus, Denmark

Call for symposium:
We intend to have at least one symposium on Restorative Environments at ICEP2023. Submissions for that are open from 15 October to 15 December.

We invite you to email us with an expression of interest (EoI) if you have relevant research results on the topic of restorative environments that you would like to present in a symposium at the conference. Your EoI should include a brief description of the research and its findings (max 200 words).

Please do so 20 November at the latest, so we have time to put a (set of) coherent symposium(s) together. We realize this gives you only a short period of time, but your EoI should not be too elaborate at this stage. After acceptance of the symposium you will be asked to make a more elaborate abstract which will most likely need to be accepted by the conference as well.

We are looking forward to hearing a lot of interesting research topics and results!

Note: for separate oral papers, not part of the symposium, the deadline is 4 january 2023.

Upcoming deadlines

If you would like an upcoming call, conference or symposium shared on Twitter, or in the next newsletter, please email us. You can also share it yourself in the Slack channel.

Congratulations

We congratulate:

• Eleanor Ratcliffe with becoming member of the IAPS board!
• Liz Henry with her PhD!

PhD thesis synopsis Liz Henry:
The primary aim of the PhD thesis was to explore the range of places that have the potential to provide well-being benefits to well (i.e., not depleted) individuals. This approach shifts the emphasis from a focus on narrow categorisation of place and from a restoration (pathogenic) to a health-promotion (salutogenic) narrative of place/well-being relationships. The research was grounded in the Person Place Process theoretical framework (Scannell & Gifford, 2010) and draws on theories of well-being (Keyes, 1998) and behaviour (COM-B; Michie et al., 2011). Further aims of the research were to consider how an individual’s relationship to place and barriers they could experience accessing place, impact multiple well-being outcomes. The findings have implications for place-related health-seeking behaviour and social prescribing. The research employed a mixed-methods approach across the 3 studies with findings emphasising the range of places with the potential for health promotion, the importance of understanding place/well-being relationships, and how behavioural barriers/facilitators impact access to these places.
Link: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/14959

New Publications (by Members)

• Aeschbach, V. M., Schipperges, H., Braun, M. A., Ehret, S., Ruess, M., Sahintuerk, Z., & Thomaschke, R. (2022). Less is more: The effect of visiting duration on the perceived restorativeness of museums. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

• Bornioli, A., & Subiza-Pérez, M. (2022). Restorative urban environments for healthy cities: A theoretical model for the study of restorative experiences in urban built settings. Landscape Research, 1-12.

• De la Fuente Suárez, L. A., & Martínez-Soto, J. (2022). Relaxation and Fascination through Outside Views of Mexican Dwellings. Architecture, 2(2), 334–361. MDPI AG.

• Joye, Y., Lange, F., & Fischer, M. (2022). Does beautiful nature motivate to work? Outlining an alternative pathway to nature-induced cognitive performance benefits. New Ideas in Psychology, 66, 100946.

• Li, H., Du, X., Ma, H., Wang, Z., Li, Y., & Wu, J. (2022). The Effect of Virtual-Reality-Based Restorative Environments on Creativity. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(19), 12083.

• Lyu, K., de Dear, R., Brambilla, A., & Globa, A. (2022). Restorative benefits of semi-outdoor environments at the workplace: Does the thermal realm matter?. Building and Environment, 222, 109355.

• Martínez-Soto, J., De la Fuente Suárez, L. A., Ruiz-Correa, S. (2021). Exploring the Links Between Biophilic and Restorative Qualities of Exterior and Interior Spaces in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 717116. 

• Moll, A., Collado, S., Staats, H., Corraliza, J. A. (2022). Restorative effects of exposure to nature on children and adolescents: A systematic review. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 101884.

• Qi, Y., Chen, Q., Lin, F., Liu, Q., Zhang, X., Guo, J., … & Gao, T. (2022). Comparative study on birdsong and its multi-sensory combinational effects on physio-psychological restoration. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 101879.

• Reece, R.; Bornioli, A.; Bray, I.; Newbutt, N.; Satenstein, D.; Alford, C. Exposure to Green and Historic Urban Environments and Mental Well-Being: Results from EEG and Psychometric Outcome Measures. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(20), 13052.

• Reece, R., Bornioli, A., Bray, I., Newbutt, N., Satenstein, D., Alford, C. (2022). Exposure to green, blue and historic environments and mental well-being: A comparison between virtual reality head-mounted display and flat screen exposure. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(15), 9457.

• Stigsdotter, U.K., Sidenius, U. Keeping promises – How to attain the goal of designing health-supporting urban green space. Landsc. Archit. Front., 2020, 8(3): 78‒89

• Ünal, A. B., Pals, R., Steg, L., Siero, F. W., & van der Zee, K. I. (2022). Is virtual reality a valid tool for restorative environments research?. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 74, 127673.

• Vitale, V., Martin, L., White, M. P., Elliott, L. R., Wyles, K. J., Browning, M. H., … & Fleming, L. E. (2022). Mechanisms underlying childhood exposure to blue spaces and adult subjective well-being: An 18-country analysis. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 101876.

If you have recently published and would like this communicated in the next newsletter, please email us. We also keep track of these (and other interesting) publications in our own Mendeley Library. If you’d like to access this library, please send an e-mail and we will add you to the library member list. Currently, there is a maximum of 100 library members.

Also let us know if you would like any project summaries shared in our next newsletter.

Vacancies

Over the years we have been sharing vacancies in the newsletter. We try to instantly share vacancies we receive on our Twitter channel. Please feel free to also share yourself in our slack channel.
A couple of currently running vacancies:

• 3 Year PhD opportunity at the University of Plymouth (UK): “Virtually painless: An investigation into the therapeutic potential of virtual natural environments for chronic low back pain”

• 2 Year Postdoctoral researcher position in the School of Psychology, University of Surrey (UK), on the topic of nature soundscapes and health and wellbeing. Queries can be directed to Eleanor Ratcliffe (eleanor.ratcliffe@surrey.ac.uk).

Member Spotlight

The photo accompanying this newsletter is supplied by our new member of the convening team Anna Bornioli, Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands). She writes:

“I am a Senior researcher at Erasmus UPT (Erasmus University Rotterdam), and my research aims to inform policies for healthy and liveable cities. My research applies the framework of restorative environments to the study of psychological experiences of urban settings. I am interested in the role of physical features but also intangible aspects, such as personal associations, memories, and cultural identities. My PhD focused on how traffic and historic features influenced wellbeing experiences in cities. I am now exploring the role of cultural landscapes, virtual reality, and favourite places in wellbeing and restorative experiences in urban settings. I also conduct research on walking, sustainable travel, and healthy behaviours.

The photo that I chose (above) depicts Santo Stefano square, in Bologna (Italy). This is the city where I studied as a Postgraduate, and I have very fond memories of the place and my years there. Because of my personal associations and memories, but also the tranquil atmosphere, sense of extent and coherence that this square offers, for me this is a restorative environment”.

Next time will feature Marilisa Herchet. Let us know if you would also like to be in our newsletter-spotlight at some point.

Contact iapsREN

You can contact the iapsREN Convening Committee via the following emails:

• Convenors: Marilisa Herchet, Anna Bornioli, Lewis Elliot, and Robert van Dongen. (REN_convenors@iaps-association.org)
• Dissemination: Robert van Dongen (publications & events) REN_dissemination@iaps-association.org)
• REN_support@iaps-association.org)
• Twitter: Anna Bornioli (follow us at@iapsREN)

Do share your favourite photos with us, and have them and you featured in future newsletters and on the website. Send photos to REN_convenors@iaps-association.org. Please let us know if you have any related publications, conferences, PhD successes or jobs to advertise in the next newsletter and/or on the website. Keep a close eye on the website and Twitter as this will display the most up to date information, including vacancies that arise in-between newsletters.

Year planning

•           Newsletter                 October 2022
•           First REN-seminar   30 November 2022; 10.30h CET
•           Newsletter                 January 2023
•           REN-seminar            22 February 2023; 16.00h CET
•           Newsletter                 April 2023
•           ICEP conference     20 – 23 June 2023