for Cognitive and
Affective Neuroscience
Meet the ESCAN Junior Committee
Following ESCAN's initiative to create a Junior Committee, some early career researchers came forward to join the Committee with the aim of understanding the needs of Junior members and designing targeted opportunities. The committee will be a point of contact and work towards increasing Junior members’ engagement within the ESCAN.
Marta Robles is a PhD student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She will officiate as the Committee's Chair and is highly motivated to meet the Junior members’ needs through interaction. Her research interests are autism, emotion processing as well as social functioning.
Amandine Guillin is a PhD student at Paris Cité University. She is the Committee's Communication Officer and joined with the aim of contributing to the development of a network of early career researchers in affective science. Her work focuses on emotion perception and personality.
Hilda Engelbrektsson is a Research Engineer in Neuroscience at the Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience at Linköping University, Sweden. She looks forward to being a voice for early career researchers and to contributing to a positive scientific community benefiting researchers at all career stages. Her main research interests include stress, emotion regulation and mental health.
Sriranjani Manivasagam is a PhD student at the Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Lab, at the University of Göttingen, Germany. As part of the committee, Sriranjani will work towards creating platforms for early career researchers to discuss their work and engage in collaboration and knowledge sharing. Her research interests are social learning, perception, and neural processing of emotions.
We warmly welcome the new members of the Committee and look forward to supporting them in their endeavors.
ESCAN has signed the Agreement on Research Assessment
ESCAN has signed the Agreement on Research Assessment prepared by the Coalition on Reforming the Research Assessment.
What is the Coalition?
The Coalition has been called for by the European Commission early in 2022. The Coalition brings together research funding organisations, research performing organisations, national/regional assessment authorities or agencies, associations of research funders, of research performers, of researchers, as well as, learned societies and other relevant organisations, all committed to implement reforms to the current research assessment system. For more information see:
What is the Agreement on reforming research assessment?
The Agreement primarily advocates for going away from shallow and blind following of metrics in evaluation of research (be it at the individual research level or institution level) and advocates for more peer-review in-depth evaluations.
The main principles are the following:
• recognizing diversity of contributions and careers in research (e.g., diverse outputs beyond journal publications, activities including teaching, leadership, supervision, mentoring)
• basing research assessment primarily on qualitative evaluation for which peer review is central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators
• abandoning inappropriate uses in research assessment of journal and publication-based metrics (journal IFs, h-index)
• avoiding use of rankings of research organizations in assessment
You can find the entire text under this link:
and here for a summary:
What is the background of the Agreement?
The Agreement has been prepared by a team nominated by the European Commission. The nominated team is composed of representatives from the European University Association (EUA), Science Europe, and the European Commission. The process of drafting the Agreement was initiated in January 2022. More than 350 organisations from over 40 countries provided feedback and consultations to the drafting team, in the context of the ERA Forum, in which current ESCAN president Agnieszka Wykowska is a delegate. ERA Forum is a forum where representatives of the European Commission of EU Member States as well as stakeholders’ groups discuss science policies at the European and national level. Organisations that provided feedback on the Agreement drafts included public and private research funders, universities, research centres, institutes and infrastructures, associations and alliances thereof, national and regional authorities, accreditation and evaluation agencies, learned societies and associations of researchers, and other relevant organisations, representing a broad diversity of views and perspectives.
Who are the signatories?
To date, the agreement has received 378 signatories, >60% of those are universities and their associations.
Here you can find signatories so far:
What does it mean for ESCAN?
• ESCAN participated in the first constitutive assembly of the coalition on the 1st of December, represented by Agnieszka Wykowska and Giorgia Silani. During this first assembly, the governance of CoARA was voted upon, the Chair and the members of the Steering Board have been elected. ESCAN will participate in all further general assemblies of CoARA and the representatives will report to ESCAN membership should there be any substantial developments.
• ESCAN can contribute to COARA by adhering to the values of COARA in evaluating researchers, for example, for the Young Investigator Award of ESCAN. In addition, ESCAN can contribute by organizing “raising awareness” events at ESCAN conferences.
We hope to have informed you sufficiently.
With kind regards,
The ESCAN Board
invitation to vote for new ESCAN board members
All ESCAN full members have received an invitation by e-mail to vote for the new members of the ESCAN Board. We have three vacancies for the Board and the following four ESCAN Full members have applied as candidates (in alphabetical order):
Nicolas Burra (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
Francesca Ciardo (Italian Institute of Technology, Italy)
Laura Crucianelli (Karolinska Institutet, Sweden)
Elisabeth Friedrich-Higgs (Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität Munich (LMU), Germany)
We asked each candidate to write a short statement to introduce themselves and motivate their candidacy for the ESCAN Board. You can access the motivational statement from each candidate through this link
ESCAN Young Investigator Award 2022
The Young Investigator Award of the European Society for Cognitive and
Affective Neuroscience honors the early achievements of scientists working in
the area of Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience and is meant to encourage the
career development and scientific endeavors in the field. This year we have two
ex-aequo winners of the ESCAN Young Investigator Award:
Dr Camilla Nord has made substantial and innovative contributions at the
intersection of cognitive-affective neuroscience and mental health as evidenced
by numerous high quality publications that highlight the translational
importance of reliable and robust measures.
Dr Emiel Cracco has made substantial and innovative contributions in the
fields of social perception and action representations as evidenced by a number
of high quality publications that advance a coherent theoretical framework of
social perception that scales up from one person to many actors.
Both awardees have shown academic independence, a strong commitment to Open
Science practices, and possess a strong track record in wider dissemination of
academic research.
We offer our warmest congratulations to both. We look forward to their
future research and to meeting them at the ESCAN conference 2022 in Vienna to
hear more about their research.
Beyond these awards, ESCAN would like to confer a ‘Commendation Award
for Open Science’ to Dr Lei Zhang for their commitment to advance
Open Science tools in the fields of social, cognitive and affective
neuroscience.
Congratulations!
With warm wishes,
The ESCAN Board
ESCAN 2022 Vienna
We are very happy to invite you to the sixth bi-annual conference of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ESCAN) that will be held in Vienna, Austria, between 19th and 22nd of July 2022.
Information can be found at www.escan2022.eu
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the local organizers at escan2022.psychologie@univie.ac.at
We look forward to seeing you in Vienna!
ESCAN2021 conference fee waiver
The ESCAN Board is offering a conference fee waiver for
ESCAN members (pre-doctoral and PhD students) who have financial difficulties
to afford the registration fee for the online conference ESCAN2021.
Please send a request to waive the ESCAN2021 registration
fee to escan@escaneurosci.eu and
include the following:
- Your name, affiliation, position and contact
information.
- A brief statement (1/2 page) to explain your motivation
to attend ESCAN2021 and your financial circumstances.
- A formal letter from your university or supervisor in
which it is stated that the conference fee will not be reimbursed.
Note that you can apply for the conference fee waiver
when you have paid the early registration fee and when you have paid the late
registration fee, but that the waiver is only applicable to the conference
registration fees for ESCAN members.
The deadline for submitting a request is June 4th, 2021.
We aim to inform applicants who will receive the waiver by June 11th, 2021. If
we receive a large number of requests, the ESCAN Board will allocate conference
waivers through a lottery.
ESCAN 2021 Budapest Going Virtual
The 5th international conference of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ESCAN) will take place virtual on 23-26 June, 2021.
ESCAN Elections 2020: results
Following the electronic ballot for the ESCAN elections 2020 that was concluded earlier this month (with a participation of 34.4% of all voting members), we are pleased to share with you the results of the election.
We have four new ESCAN board members: Aikaterini (Katerina) Fotopoulou (University College London), Henk van Steenbergen (University of Leiden), Lorena Chanes (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), and Shaimaa Nasr Amin (Hashemite University - Cairo University). Congratulation to all!
Manos Tsakiris (Royal Holloway, University of London) has been confirmed as the new president of ESCAN. Congratulations Manos, and good luck in leading the society in the coming years with hopefully better times ahead.
The results for election of the new President-Elect led to a tie: both candidates (Agnieszka Wykowska, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, and Giorgia Silani, University of Vienna) received exactly the same number of votes!
The board agreed that this is an exceptional event and both candidates should have the possibility to take on the role of President. Therefore, for the duration of the presidential mandate of 2023-2024, both Agnieszka and Giorgia will share the role of ESCAN President. The candidates will alternate in holding the executive powers of presidency: Agnieszka in 2023, Giorgia in 2024. Until then, both candidates will share the responsibilities of Presidents-Elect. Congratulations to both!
ESCAN Elections 2020
In spite of the ESCAN 2020 conference and plenary meeting having been postponed to 2021, the board is presently organizing elections for positions in the board and presidency of the society:
1) Election of new board members
2) Confirmation of the new President
3) Election of the new President-Elect
Voting on new board members, confirmation of the new President, and election of the new President-Elect will take place via an electronic ballot that will be open for voting from 20/10/2020 until 10/11/2020. All full members of ESCAN in good standing will receive an e-mail sent to the e-mail address that is registered in their member profile at the ESCAN website with an individual link to vote.
The list of candidates (including motivation and biosketch) are available at https://osf.io/k47rp/.
Election of new board members - Call for nominations
ESCAN will hold elections for up to four new board members in the Fall of 2020 via electronic ballot. As such, we are announcing a call for nominations among the ESCAN membership for the upcoming elections. ESCAN full members in good standing that are committed to the duties and mission of the society are eligible to become candidates either by self-nomination or by suggestion.
We aim to increase the diversity and inclusivity of ESCAN, and that includes the ESCAN board. As such, we encourage members from different backgrounds to apply to board membership in the upcoming elections.
Information on the call will be sent to members via e-mail.
ESCAN Round Table sessions 2020
On July 3rd, 2020, ESCAN organizes a series of online “round table” sessions. In these small-group online discussions (targeted at PhD students and postdocs), ESCAN members can informally discuss a set of pre-determined topics, moderated by scientists with expertise on the topic.
After the round table sessions, there will be an Open Flash Talk session in which ESCAN members can share their most recent research findings with other members. The goal of the Open Flash Talk session is to give you the chance to present your research in a short 2-minute video “flash talk” format. The full details for this session can be found in the flash talk submission form.
Time Table - July 3rd, 2020:
15:30 - 16:30 | Round Table sessions
• Challenges for women in science (Moderator(s): Barbara Schober & Giorgia Silani)
• Good Research Practices (Moderator(s): Suzanne Oosterwijk & Lukas Snoek)
• Online testing and experimentation (Moderator(s): Cesco Willemse)
• How to become a PI/Grant writing (Moderator(s): Manos Tsakiris & Agnieszka Wykowska)
• EEG analyses/hyperscanning (Moderator(s): Ivana Konvalinka & Suzanne Dikker)
17:00 - 18:00 | Open Flash Talk session
If you would like to sign up for one of the online round table sessions, please fill out the following form: https://forms.gle/DQXTfQXUwt4xtDbj9
If you would like to submit a flash talk for the Open Flash Talk session, please fill out the following form: https://forms.gle/6KDAJBFFYxeb5pdu6
Registration for the sessions closes on July 1st. If you have any questions, feel free to send an email to escan@escaneurosci.eu
Online Round Tables survey
Since the ESCAN 2020 conference has been postponed to next year, we are considering to organize online "round table" sessions on the dates of the original ESCAN conference (1 - 4 July 2020). In these round table session members discuss pre-determined topics in small informal groups.
We would like to invite you to fill out a short survey
in which you can express your interest in attending such sessions. The
survey will only take a few minutes to complete and can be accessed
until June 5th: https://nlpsych.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_doO8HXJGHZxZa61
We really appreciate your input! Thank you!
2020 Conference in Budapest postponed to 2021
IMPORTANT UPDATE
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the ESCAN 2020 Organizing Committee, the ESCAN Board, and the management of Asszisztencia Congress Bureau agreed to postpone the ESCAN 2020 Conference to next year. We trust that by then the global pandemic will no longer be part of our daily lives, and will not impact business operations, travels and conferences anymore. This decision was taken in the interest of all and serves the safety and good health of delegates, speakers, exhibitors, organizers, and service providers.
The 2021 conference location will not change (Budapest, Hungary) and the new dates are June 23-26 2021.
For more information please read the full statement at the conference website: http://www.escan2020.eu.
ESCAN Young Investigator Award 2020
The ESCAN Board is pleased to announce that the ESCAN Young Investigator Award 2020 has been attributed to Leor Zmigrod (University of Cambridge). Congratulations and looking forward to the award address that will take place at the ESCAN Conference!
New Initiatives
The board of the society is in the process of renovating rules and structure of the society and has developed new tools to support our members. Among other things, we recently opened a Twitter account: @ESCAN_EU. Members are encouraged to follow. If you want to communicate important information to all the followers of the ESCAN twitter account, please tag us @ESCAN_EU and we will retweet your message.
We are currently announcing calls that you may be interested in:
ESCAN election: Results
The results of the ESCAN election are out, and we are happy to announce the election of the four candidates Agnieszka Wykowska, Giorgia Silani, Matthias J. Wieser, and Suzanne Oosterwijk. Congratulations!
Participation in the ballot by members eligible to vote was 30.4%.
Call for nominations: Election for ESCAN board members 2018
The ESCAN board is preparing an election to select new board members, that is scheduled to take place later in 2018 via electronic ballot (more information on the election will be provided at a later date).
As such, we are announcing a call for nominations among the ESCAN membership for the upcoming election. ESCAN members in good standing that are committed to the duties and mission of the society are eligible to become candidates either by self-nomination or by suggestion.
Members will be contacted via the e-mail address with which they are registered in the society with further instructions to submit a nomination/suggestion.
ESCAN election: Voting!
We are happy to announce the four candidates that have come forth in their interest to join the ESCAN board (ordered alphabetically):
- Agnieszka Wykowska
- Giorgia Silani
- Matthias J. Wieser
- Suzanne Oosterwijk
There are up to four available positions in the board. Read the candidates' application statements and biosketches.
The dates for the election are between the 7th and 18th of January 2019. An official notification from BallotBin has been sent via e-mail to voting members (as per Article 13, point 2 of the Constitution: "Every full member, retired member or honorary member who is not suspended has one vote. All other categories will be considered special members who have not the right to vote.").
Check your e-mail to vote!
For any queries please contact the ESCAN Board Secretary, Fernando Ferreira-Santos (frsantosfpce.up.pt).
ESCAN Meeting in Budapest, postponed to 2021
The 5th International Conference of the ESCAN will take place in Budapest, but has been postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Read the full statement at the conference website: http://www.escan2020.eu.
ESCAN meeting in Leiden, 2018
The 2018 international conference of ESCAN was the largest yet and a great success! If you feel nostalgic, you can revisit many of the conference highlights on Twitter: #ESCAN2018.
New ESCAN board members 2016
Please welcome our new board members
Lorenza Colzato, ESCAN Secretary
Fernando Ferreira-Santos
Manos Tsakiris
New functions in the board
Bernhard Hommel, ESCAN Deputy-Treasurer
Leaving the board ...
Awards
Matthew Apps recieved the ESCAN young researcher award during the Porto 2016 conference.
At the conference he presented a talk on "Neurocomputational basis of social signals in the anterior cingulate cortex".
ESCAN 2016 conference
The 2016 international conference of ESCAN was a great success with many talks in the domains of cognitive, affective, and social neuroscience. Enjoy the pictures here below from the venue in Porto, Portugal.
ESCAN 3rd international conference
We are pleased to announce the 3rd international conference of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, that will take place in Porto, Portugal, between 23-26 of June, 2016, at the Porto Palácio Congress Hotel & Spa.
ESCAN meeting in 2014
The Board is pleased to announce that Michael Falkenstein, one of our founding members, and his team will be organizing the ESCAN2014 meeting.
Marseille 2012
We look back at a succesful and well-attended first scientific meeting from 9 to 12 May 2012 in Marseille.
ESCAN meeting in Amsterdam
The ESCAN kick-off meeting (10-12 December 2009, Amsterdam) was the first public manifestation of the society. 70 participants from all over Europe attended 20 scientific presentations.
Call for Papers
50th Anniversary Congress of the German Psychological Society - LeiPSYCH.
Paper submission is possible from 2 November 2015 until 29 January 2016.