The International Society of Embodied Education (EMBED) champions and facilitates collaborative research initiatives among international scholars through specialized working groups, study colloquia, and targeted scientific networks and publications. We are deeply dedicated to supporting junior researchers, creating robust mentorship channels that connect early-career investigators with established academics in the field.
Central to our mission are our flagship academic conferences, scholarly symposia, and dedicated publication channels designed to advance rigorous dialogue in embodied education. Embracing a pluralistic scientific culture, EMBED recognizes that a diverse membership – spanning varied backgrounds, identities, and perspectives – is essential to the vitality of our community. We recognize that the field of embodied education is heterogeneous and colorful, spanning dance to theatre, STEAM to pet therapy, politics to juggling, and theory to mindfulness and much more. We remain firmly committed to fostering equity, diversity, and inclusion across all our initiatives while actively preventing discrimination in all its forms.
The origins of the International Society of Embodied Education are rooted in a coincidence of proximity and shared academic passion. Between 2018 and 2020, Oliver Kauffmann, Dag Munk Lindemann, and Denis Francesconi were all based at the School of Education at Aarhus University's Copenhagen Campus. Despite working in offices within the very same building for two years, their paths never crossed (!), and they remained entirely unaware of one another's presence. In July 2020, following the completion of his Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship, Denis Francesconi returned to Italy. One week later, he received an email from Oliver and Dag, asking for chat on embodied education over a coffee. It was too late for that. However, they convened online, marking the birth of the EMBED research group, officially hosted at Aarhus University EMBodied EDucation (EMBED).
Beginning in 2021, the group established a regular cadence of online meetings, fostering a vibrant international space for rigorous dialogue and debate. We collectively presented at ECER in Yerevan 2022 and at the INPE conference at AU/DPU in Copenhagen 2022. A summer university course ‘Enacting Education’ was offered at AU, and a Ph.D. course 'Embodied Education - 4Es cognition and emotion in education, pedagogy and didactics' (with Prof. Shaun Gallagher, Memphis University) took place autumn 2022. We also developed cooperation on applications for research funding.
Building on this momentum, the founding trio decided in 2022 to organize the inaugural International Conference on Embodied Education, which successfully took place in Copenhagen in 2024 alongside a dedicated doctoral school.
The journey culminated in June 2026 at the Second International Conference, once again hosted in Copenhagen at Aarhus University. It was during this landmark gathering that the community transitioned from an informal research network into a formally established global entity: the International Society for Embodied Education (EMBED).
