UWTSD Psychology staff host International cross-cultural research workshop at global conference

Researchers from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David’s (UWTSD) Psychology and Counselling Department hosted a workshop for fellow researchers and practitioners on how to carry out effective international cross-cultural research at the American Psychological Association Annual Conference in Washington DC.

The conference, which brings together experts to promote the advancement, communication, and application of psychological science and knowledge to benefit society and improve lives, is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Dr Katie Sullivan and Dr Paul Hutchings have worked on a number of global projects over the past few years including the Gender Harmony Project with researchers from University of Gdansk and University of Southern Florida, the Sustainable Human Resources Management Project (alongside Dr Ceri Phelps at UWTSD) with the University of Warsaw, and with a number of researchers from across the USA, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines examining mental health responses to Covid-19.

This was the first time this team had met in person, with all of their previous research collaborations having been carried out remotely during and after the Covid lockdowns. The collaboration has resulted in several research papers and a book on responding to the challenges posed by Covid and other potential health crises. It was because of the success of this work that the APA gave a session to the team to explain how they had been able to carry out these collaborations effectively and to provide guidance to other researchers on best practice when putting together cross-cultural collaborations.

Dr Hutchings, the Academic Director of Psychology and Counselling at UWTSD, said: “It was wonderful to finally meet up with our collaborators in person, and it has given us the opportunity to discuss our own research over several days and produce further ideas for continuing the collaborations between our universities and nations.

“The workshop was also a fantastic opportunity to both pass on our own knowledge and lessons learned from those collaborations, and also to meet potential new collaborators from other countries. We have spoken to a lot of people at the workshop and the wider conference, and hope that our workshop enables them to either forge their own collaborations or work with us on ours to broaden our team.”

The research team have been asked to publish their guidance in a new book, which they will be working on over the next few months.

Further Information

Rebecca Davies

Executive Press and Media Relations Officer    
Corporate Communications and PR    
Email: rebecca.davies@uwtsd.ac.uk    
Phone: 07384 467071