CUES Showcases Research at Four Leading Conferences Across Europe

This summer, CUES project was featured at four major academic conferences (ICEP, ACEI, ICORIA, and PHAIR) through the contributions of PhD candidate Leonie C. Peiffer from our project partner and coordinator Erasmus University Rotterdam. These events provided an excellent opportunity to disseminate CUES research on sustainable food transitions and consumer behaviour to diverse scientific communities.

International Conference on Environmental Psychology – ICEP, Lithuania, 15-18 June

To kick off the conference season, Leonie had the opportunity to present research on “Consumers’ Willingness to Reduce Dairy Consumption and Adopt Plant-Based Dairy Alternatives: A Cross-Country Study Applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour” at the International Conference on Environmental Psychology (ICEP) in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Under the conference theme of “Addressing environmental crisis in the face of geopolitical challenges.”, 600 scholars all around the world came together to exchange knowledge and perspectives all around environmental psychology. The event highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration by bringing together researchers from psychology, environmental science, sociology, and policy to address the complex challenges of sustainable transitions.

International Conference on Cultural Economics – ACEI, The Netherlands, Rotterdam, 25 June

Project coordinator Dr. Yijing Wang and Leonie C Peiffer further had the opportunity to present a poster on the opinion paper “Addressing Grand Challenges in Sustainable Food Transitions: Opportunities Through the Triple Change Strategy” (Polyportis, De Keyzer, van Prooijen, Peiffer & Wang, 2025) at the ACEI conference at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

The Triple Change Strategy highlights Consumer and Cultural Change, Industrial Change, and Policy Change as interconnected dimensions essential for driving behavioral change and ensuring a successful transition to sustainable food systems. By leveraging persuasive communication and interventions for transparency, fostering value chain reform, and advocating for policy transformations, the Triple Change aims to overcome existing barriers and create opportunities to accelerate the shift towards a resilient food system.

International Conference on Research in Advertising – ICORIA, The Netherlands, Rotterdam, 27 June

Along with our partner KU Leuven, the Erasmus Team participated in a dedicated session on sustainable food consumption at ICORIA held at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Leonie held a talk on “Tide of Change: Exploring Consumer Acceptance of Plant-Based Fish and Seafood Alternatives”. 

You can read more about our CUES session at ICORIA here: CUES at ICORIA 2025 in Rotterdam  • CUES Project

Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations – PHAIR, Scotland, Edinburgh, 2-5 July

At the conference of the PHAIR society, Leonie got to share research on “Consumers’ Willingness to Reduce Dairy Consumption and Adopt Plant-Based Dairy Alternatives: A Cross-Country Study Applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour” during a poster session as well as “Tide of Change: Exploring Consumer Acceptance of Plant-Based Fish and Seafood Alternatives” at the session on Attitudes Towards Fish Consumption.

With 200 international conference attendees, PHAIR brought together not only researchers from the social and behavioral sciences, but also activists, lawyers, and NGOs to explore how we can better understand human behaviour and create meaningful, lasting change for animals.

Presented research focused among others on dietary choices, human attachment to animal products, and veganism, reduction of meat, dairy and fish consumption, animal suffering in related industries, and ways of striving for more sustainable and kinder futures for animal. PHAIR thereby uniquely connected research with animal advocacy.