
The CICA adventure began in the early 80’s of the last century under the guiding force of J. Martin Ramirez who embraced the idea of studying aggression from an interdisciplinary, comprehensive approach.
Our first Coloquio Internacional sobre Cerebro y Agresion (CICA) was organized in Seville, as a post-conference event after a very interesting meeting in Fes (Morocco) on relationships between the brain and the mind. Karl Pribram and Dianne Mc Guiness were the first invited scholars. One year later, Robert Hinde and Grazia Attili were kind enough to come to Seville and share with us their scientific experiences on aggression in children. It was the 2nd CICA. Its success animated us to organize them periodically and disseminate their main scientific contributions in the frame of a series of books on the topic. Seville and La Rábida were hosts of a row of CICAs, as well as of the 4th European Conference of the International Society for Research on Aggression (ISRA). The Seville Statement of Violence was also finalized there in 1986 and was endorsed by the General Conference of UNESCO in 1989.
Following one of the suggestions of the ISRA officials, we decided to institutionalize the Colloquia and also to organize meetings outside Seville in order to disseminate the research on aggression among scholars of other countries. Consequently the next CICAs were held in other continents: Chile and Colombia (three times) in South America, South Africa and Zambia in Africa. Later, meetings have also being organized in North America (Georgia, California, New England and Mexico) and in Asia (Sri Lanka and Turkey), as well as in different European venues (Spain, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Greek Islands, Bulgaria, Germany, British Isles…). In 2020 we accomplished the presence of CICA in all the five continents, with the celebration of the LII CICA in Oceania.
More recently, besides our usual periodic meetings on different specific topics related to aggression, we have been focusing more carefully on one of aggression’s most extreme expressions -terrorism-, by organizing joint conferences with the Society for Terrorism Research., and on security and defence, jointly with the Nebrija-Santander Global Chair on Management of Risks and Conflicts.
Up to now, about two thousand scholars of all the continents and quite different scientific disciplines have participated in fifty meetings organized in four continents. The most selected scientific contributions from these meetings have also been published in about fifty volumes.
CICA is a member of the Union of International Associations.
