Environment, Behaviour & Society

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Environment, Behaviour & Society (EBS), known in most other places as Environment-Behavior Studies, and formerly at Sydney as People-Environment Relations and People and the Physical Environment Research, is the study of the mutual interactions among people, social groups, culture and the physical environment at all scales from interior architecture to regional planning, with applications to improving the quality of life through improved environmental policy, planning and design.

EBS and its predecessors have been recognised internationally for sustained cutting-edge research on these issues at the University of Sydney since the early 1960s. Fundamental research has been conducted on a wide range of topics on the interface between the physical environment, human behaviour, society and culture and about understanding the effects of the environment on people.

The Australasian People and the Physical Environment Research Association (PaPER) was founded at Sydney in 1980, the PaPER Journal edited and published by the Faculty from the 1980s through 2005, the 11th International Conference on Environment-Behaviour Research on the Pacific Rim held in Sydney in 1998, and the 1st International Symposium on Environment, Behaviour and Society held at Sydney in 2006.

The Environment, Behaviour and Society Research Group is currently comprised of PhD and MPhil students and international visiting scholars plus occasional visiting professors on sabbatical from other universities. It is lead by Professor Gary T Moore, Emeritus Professor of Environment-Behaviour Studies. Members of the group are working on a variety of contemporary, action-oriented EBS research projects. They share a bank of offices, common spaces and a modest EBS library on the top floor of the Wilkinson Building, and have ready access to a sophisticated network of computers and internet resources, research spaces, and the largest university library in Australasia.

Since its foundation, the group’s research has been supported by various grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC), Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), international grants and fellowships under which visiting professors and scholars have worked, and other public and private sector sources. Research results have been presented at all the most important international conferences in the field (eg, EBRA, EDRA, IAPS and MERA) and have been published in the major books and journals (eg, Environment & Behavior, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Architecture et Comportement, Journal of Architecture and Planning Research, etc.) in the field.

Further Enquiries

For more information about the EBS research group, please contact:
Professor Gary Moore, Emeritus Professor of Environment-Behaviour Studies

Research Resources

The Faculty's Research Centres

The Architectural Science Review Research Journal

Conferences

The 1st International Symposium on Environment, Behaviour & Society