Draft:International Society for Research on Emotion (ISRE)

About ISRE

The International Society for Research on Emotion (ISRE) is dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of emotions and other affective processes by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and dialogue. Its mission is to bring together scholars from diverse fields, including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, computer science, and the humanities, who share an interest in studying affective phenomena. ISRE aims to promote rigorous research, support the next generation of scholars, and create a global community where ideas about emotion can be critically examined and constructively developed.

History

ISRE was officially founded on March 25–26, 1984, by a group of pioneering researchers—François Bresson, Joe Campos, Matty Chiva, Paul Ekman, Nico Frijda, Serge Moscovici, Klaus Scherer, and Robert Zajonc—who recognized the need for a dedicated platform where emotion researchers could connect across disciplinary boundaries. Since then, the society has grown into a vibrant international network.

One of ISRE’s signature activities is its biennial ISRE conference, which serves as a key venue for presenting new research and forging interdisciplinary connections. These gatherings attract scholars from a wide array of disciplines, reflecting the society’s broad and inclusive approach to the study of emotion.

Governance

Elected Members

Role	Member(s)
President	Disa Sauter, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Past president	Ursula Hess, Humboldt-University of Berlin, Germany
Treasurer	Eric Walle, University of California, Merced, USA
Secretary	Milica Nikolic, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Membership Chair	Tanja Wingenbach, University of Reading, UK
Chair of ISRE Early Career Researcher Section (ECRS)	Manuel F. Gonzalez, Montclair State University, USA
Members at Large	Jonathan Gratch, University of Southern California, USA Olivier Luminet, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium Magdalena Rychlowska, Queens University Belfast, UK Mikko Salmela, University of Helsinki, Finland Eric Vanman, University of Queensland, Australia

Appointed Members

Role	Member(s)
Editors-in-Chief of Emotion Review	Bradley Irish, Arizona State University, USA Brian Parkinson, University of Oxford, UK Giovanna Colombetti, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
Editor-in-Chief of Emotion Researcher	Rebecca Dickason, University of Rennes, France
Webmaster	Alessio Giarrizzo, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Content manager	Teerawat Monnor, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Publications

Emotion Review

About the publication

Emotion Review is ISRE’s flagship peer-review academic journal published in collaboration with Sage. Its aim is to publish a combination of theoretical, conceptual, and review papers — often with commentaries — to enhance debate about critical issues in emotion theory and research. The journal publishes work across a wide interdisciplinary field of research that traverses disciplines including anthropology, biology, computer science, economics, history, humanities, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, physiology, political science, psychiatry, psychology, sociology, and other areas where emotion research is active. Its current 5-year impact factor is 6.2 (as of 2025).

Aims and Scope

Emotion Review focuses on ideas about emotion, broadly defined. It publishes articles presenting new theories, offering conceptual analyses, reviewing the literature, and debating and critiquing conceptual issues. It does not publish reports of empirical studies. The journal also invites the submission of commentaries on previously published articles. Both original articles and commentaries on previous articles are treated as manuscripts and submitted in the same manner. All submissions are reviewed with respect to their scholarly merit.

Emotion Researcher

About the publication

Emotion Researcher is ISRE’s sourcebook for research on emotion and affect. Its content encompasses a wide spectrum of academic domains which focus on emotions, from philosophy to psychology, from sociology to computer science, from neuroscience to history, etc. (this is not an exhaustive list).

Aims and Scope

Emotion Researcher aims to foster academic dialogue on emotions by shedding light on contributions which showcase the diversity of research on this topic. The outlet focuses on short formats but with varied content: empirical contributions, theoretical discussions, interviews, historical sections, etc.

ISRE Conferences

The ISRE conference is a bi-annual meeting that brings emotion researchers from around the world together to interact. The main purpose is to encourage discussion and collaboration.

Recent conferences

Year	Location	Information about the conference
2024	Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland	Organizers: Gary McKeown (Queen’s University Belfast) and Magdalena Rychlowska (Queen’s University Belfast)
2022	University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California USA.	Organizers: Jonathan Gratch (University of Southern California) and Stacy Marsella (Northeastern University)
2019	University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands	Organizers: Agneta Fischer (University of Amsterdam) and Disa Sauter (University of Amsterdam)

Early Career Researcher Section (ECRS)

Missions

The Early Career Researchers Section (ECRS) is a volunteer committee comprised of junior members of ISRE (e.g., students, postdoctoral researchers, junior faculty). The members of the ECRS develop and implement a variety of professional and social initiatives for early career emotion researchers each year both during ISRE conferences and in between meetings. Additionally, the ISRE ECRS strives to support junior members by developing and providing awards, career development opportunities, and expert feedback.

Initiatives

The ECRS delivered their first initiative at the 2017 ISRE meeting in St. Louis, USA. The event was a pre-conference 'Meet the Editors' workshop in which early career researchers had the opportunity to learn from and network with editors from emotion-related journals. In the years since, the ECRS has delivered many additional initiatives, including a mentoring program, a biannual webinar series (the theme of which changes each time), workshops and panel events (including topics such as time management, grants, and communicating about research), a best poster award for early career attendees at ISRE conference, and social events.

External links

• ISRE Official website
• Emotion Review
• Emotion Researcher