What is PEPSS?
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Political and Environmental Psychology and Social Science (PEPSS) Seminar Series, known as PEPSS, is an interdisciplinary seminar series that connects academics, practitioners, and policy-makers.  The seminar series is sponsored by the Social Change Lab, SIGN, NESS, and endorsed by CRiSP.

What are our aims?
PEPSS aims to break the disconnects between academics from different disciplines, and between scholars and practitioners and policy-makers, through facilitating interdisciplinary conversations. PEPSS provide a structure that encourages conversations between interdisciplinary teams, replacing traditional presentations as one-off monologues with iterative dialogues. Instead of focusing on individuals presenting their own work, PEPSS takes a next step by asking scholars to present to and respond to each other.

Through inviting interdisciplinary dyads or panels to triangulate a problem from multiple perspectives, PEPSS is designed to reach interdisciplinary audiences and stimulate new conversations. Our aim is to encourage students and scholars to think across levels of analysis, surface assumptions, and make salient contests of ideas.

The PEPSS talks are recorded and published via the Psychology of Change YouTube channel. The world community can access the talks for free. Moreover, we hope that in future, scholars can also iteratively return to the topics in future sessions to try to progress understanding and engage debates.

We invite you to host a PEPSS seminar
Our vision is for interested parties in other universities in Australia and around the world to host their own seminars following the PEPSS format, so that we may further advance our collective understanding of today’s most pressing issues. This could mean co-hosting individual seminars as part of our series, or it could involve adopting the PEPSS format and running your own PEPSS seminar series.  Imagine the immense benefit of having increased interdisciplinary dialogue around the world on the big issues – the environment, democracy, world peace, and more.

Since commencing in late 2022, we have had PEPSS seminars co-hosted by colleagues at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and the University of Melbourne, and we have held PEPSS seminars on topics such as countering science misinformation, why people do and don’t protect biodiversity, the boundary between free speech and hate speech, and weight stigma in health policy and practice, to highlight just a few. Please see below for our full list of recorded PEPSS seminars available for viewing.

Interested scholars and researchers of any level of seniority can host a PEPSS seminar and it is actually a great way for those early on in their career to make connections and help establish themselves.

We invite you to host your own PEPSS seminar, or PEPSS seminar series, and have outlined below what we think are the key steps involved to help you do this.

1. So that we can support and endorse your PEPSS seminar/seminar series, please first reach out to us via email at [email protected]. Let us know you’re interested and what you have in mind. If needed, we can provide guidance – for example if you are wanting help refining your seminar topic or deciding who best to invite – as well as practical support in the form of templated materials, such as example email invitations, proforma run sheets, etc.
2. We have a small PEPSS working group that organises our seminar series and find this works well in terms of contributing diverse ideas for topics and potential speakers, as well as offering a source of practical support when running the seminars. You may wish to invite a few colleagues to form your own PEPSS working group, especially if planning to develop your own PEPSS seminar series. 
3. Consider your topic and relevant potential speakers. Bear in mind that this initiative is focussed on political and environmental psychology and social science and aims to address the most significant issues we are facing from the perspective of interdisciplinary experts in those fields. Do not be afraid to invite really well-known speakers – they may say yes – and also don’t overlook inviting international speakers if it is possible to align time zones.
4. Reach out to your speakers to invite them. In this communication you should emphasise the seminar format and it is helpful to also suggest a specific topic(s) they might like to speak on. You can invite them to suggest a second speaker if you wish, or else let them know the second speaker you have in mind. We recommend contacting your invited speaker(s) with ideally at least 3-4 months’ notice.
5. Organise and advertise the seminar. The remaining tasks involve what you would normally expect when organising a seminar, such as arranging the venue, finalising details with your speakers, nominating a chair, advertising the seminar, etc. To help increase your potential audience, we recommend running a hybrid seminar with in-person and online attendance options. If it is possible for you and you have permission from your speakers, we also recommend recording the seminar and making it available online for later viewing. Don’t forget to send us the invitation too so we can share it among our relevant networks.
6. Consider combining your PEPSS seminar with a Leapfrog project.​

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PEPSS in 2022

• September 16 - Introduction to PEPSS [Video: 59:36] - Prof. Jolanda Jetten, Prof. Kelly Fielding, Prof. Winnifred Louis
• October 28 – Gender Inclusion and Equity in Universities [Video: 1:27:18]- Prof. Jolanda Jetten, A/Prof Marit Kragt, Prof. Naomi Ellemers, Prof. Michelle Ryan
• November 11, 10:30am Brisbane time  – Why people do and don’t protect biodiversity - Prof. Kelly Fielding, Dr. Lily van Eeden, Prof. Hugh Possingham, Prof. Taciano Milfont

PEPSS in 2023

• March 17 - The boundary between free speech and hate speech [Video: 1:25:18] - Prof. Winnifred Louis, Prof. Kath Gelber, Prof. Michal Bilewicz. 
• April 21 -  Achieving World Peace – what we know and what we don’t know [Video: 1:26:59] - Prof. Winnifred Louis, Prof. Diane Bretherton, Prof. Alexander Bellamy
• May 19 - Countering Science Misinformation - A case study of the Great Barrier Reef [Video: 1:19:40] - Dr Alicia Kennedy, Dr John Cook, Prof. Winnifred Louis, Dr Tracy Schultz
• August 18 -  The Dynamics of State Capture - What we know and what we don't know [Video: 1:26:07] - Dr Rebecca Colvin, Prof. Daniel Nyberg, Prof. Winnifred Louis, Dr Christoph Klebl.
• Sept 15 -  Weight Stigma in Health Policy and Practice [Video: 59:37] - Dr Briony. Hill, Prof John Dixon, Dr Joanne Rathbone.
• Nov 17 -  Theory of Change: Practical reflections from an environmental scientist's perspective. [Video: 1:29:38] - Prof. lain Walker (Chair), Ashley Sparrow, Dr Lucy Richardson

 
​PEPSS in 2024

• March 15 –  Perspectives on Violent and Non-Violent Resistance Strategies.  [Video: 1:31:31] - Prof. Winnifred Louis (Co-Chair), Dr Hema Preya Selvanathan (Co-Chair), Prof. Stellan Vinthagen, Dr Robin Gulliver.
• April 19 –  Behaviour change and system change: Friend, foe, or folly?  [Video: 1:30:59] - Prof. Winnifred Louis (Chair),  Prof. Liam Smith, Dr Mitzi Bolton.
• May 17 Democratic transitions: What we know and what we don't know  [Video: 1:31:46] - Prof. Winnifred Louis (Chair),  Dr Chris Klebl (Co-Chair), Prof. Fathali M. Moghaddam, Prof. Edward Aspinall.
• August 16 Making big money work for the climate transition.   [Video: 1:27:44] - Dr Chris Klebl (Chair), A/Prof. Saphira Rekker, Brett Morgan
• August 29 The psychological, social, and structural challenges of climate action. [Video: 1:13:17] - Dr Li Tay (Chair), Dr Zoe Leviston, Professor Sharon Friel​.
• October 18 Mobilising Change: Insights into building individual & collective support for climate action.  [Video: 1:29:12] - Professor Iain Walker, Professor Wendy Steele, Tony Milne.
• November 15

PEPSS in 2025

• February 7
• March 7
• April 4
  
• May 2
  
• August 1
• September 5
  
• October 3
  
• November 7