The Environmental Education Laboratory (EEL) is a research centre run by the Department of Educational Studies  based at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens School of Philosophy. The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) is the oldest and largest institution of Higher Education in Greece, and among the largest and most well-known universities in Europe and the world. Officially founded in 1837, the NKUA is the first University not only of Greece but also in the Balkan peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean region. With a student body of about 125,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, 1,900 members of academic staff and approximately 1,300 administrative and secretarial staff, the NKUA aims at excellence in both teaching and research in a significantly varied range of disciplines. Recently NKUA ranked n.26 out of 10,500 Universities worldwide according to the Google Scholar Citations (GSC) institutional profiles (http://www.webometrics.info/en) and the top higher education institution in Greece. Comprising 32 Faculties and their respective Departments functioning within 8 Schools, the NKUA offers a wide range of undergraduate courses and almost 100 postgraduate programmes. Research activity is implemented in all NKUA Departments and especially in the Research Labs attached to them. There are in all 128 Labs, small units for focused research and education activity in specific disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields. Through them the University of Athens is active in leading and participating in a large number of research projects. Indicatively, for the period 2008-2014 funding for research implemented by NKUA amounted to 125,000,000 EUR (within the Operational Programmes of the National Strategic Reference Framework), 96,500,000 EUR (European Commission), 63.500.000 EUR (self-funding), and 42.500.000 EUR (third parties funding, such as donations, etc.).

The Environmental Education Laboratory (EEL) was established in 2004 and has administratively and scientifically derived from the Center of Environmental Education (CEED). It advances educational research and pedagogical practice on innovative teaching and learning approaches, methodologies and tools that raise youth and general public awareness and strengthen informed action competence with regards to current environmental and sustainability issues. Among its main goals is also to promote environmental and sustainability literacy in students both on an undergraduate and postgraduate level and professional expertise in teachers in relation to environmental and sustainability education. The EEL also serves as a hub that brings together academic researchers with school education actors (pre- and post-graduate students, teachers, pupils and educational administrators), non-formal and informal education organisations (NGOs, museums) and other societal and professional stakeholders (i.e. municipalities and regional authorities, SMEs) to co-define current socio-environmental issues of concern and to co-create research-based knowledge and solutions that are theoretically relevant, socially sensitive and practically applicable in various education and learning contexts.

The General Assembly of the Faculty of Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology assigned Assistant Professor of the Department, Maria Daskolia, as Director of the Environmental Education Laboratory, in 2014.