Labs and Centers
Over the past 25 years, Dr.Elke Weber has created four centers and labs that investigate human decision making in its complexity, combining theory and tools from cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, and the neurosciences.
Two of those continue to exist at Columbia University. The recent one is in Berlin. And of course, the BSPL lab is housed here in Princeton University.
Centers in Berlin
(1) Center for Research on Environmental Decisions in Berlin (CREDiBl)
Led by Professors Elke Weber (Princeton University) and Eric Johnson (Columbia University), we are a dedicated group of six researchers passionate about leveraging behavioral and social sciences to confront challenges related to climate change.
The center is funded by the Berlin Einstein Foundation.
Our team is in contact with several Berlin institutions that have similar research interests.
These include:
- Climate Change Center Berlin Brandenburg
- Berlin Social Science
- Bundeskanzleramt (Department 612)
- Klimafakten-Initiative
Centers at Columbia University
(2) Center for the Decision Sciences (CDS)
The Center for the Decision Sciences (CDS) serves as a resource to encourage dialogue and collaboration among researchers in multiple divisions and disciplines at Columbia Business School and to facilitate dialogue with and research transfer to industry experts and public policy makers. Our goal is to generate and facilitate interdisciplinary basic research that is relevant to the needs of real world decision makers.
The Center, formerly part of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), is a partner of the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED).
CDS has three founding directors: Eric Johnson, David Krantz and Elke Weber.
For more details, see Center for Decision Sciences.
(3) Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED): 2001-2016
CRED was an interdisciplinary social science research center that studied individual and group decision making under climate uncertainty and decision making in the face of environmental risk. CRED’s objectives addressed the human responses to climate change and climate variability as well as improved communication and increased use of scientific information on climate variability and change. In addition to advancing fundamental theory in psychology, behavioral economics, and other social science disciplines, CRED researchers worked on integrating field projects around the world, where decision science is brought to bear on sustainable development challenges in such settings as agricultural decisions and water management.
Located at Columbia University, CRED was affiliated with The Earth Institute and partners with various departments and centers across campus. CRED was established in 2004 as one of four centers under the National Science Foundation Program Decision Making Under Uncertainty (DMUU) with major NSF funding under two cooperative agreements. The initial CRED proposal emphasized the importance of group decisions, as well as individual actions in a group context, for climate-related and other environmental decisions. David Krantz, Elke Weber, Roberta Balstad, and Kenneth Broad were the initial co-directors of CRED, and the wider team included many senior scientists from a variety of disciplines.