Staff at the Centre has a wide–range of expertise and dynamic research agendas. These all find their place in subject specific modules offered at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with particular attention being paid to issues of peace building, democratic transition, and post conflict reconciliation, including:

• securing, and maintaining cease-fires by armed groups;
• confidence-building measures and problems of public order;
• obstacles (or perceived obstacles) to political settlement;
• factors helping (or assumed to help) to promote the environment for political settlements;
• human and minority rights, rights of migrants, and responsibilities of the state;
• normative models for political settlements;
• long-term influences on community relations and intergroup conflict;
• influence of external factors on peace and stability, especially international organisations.

The Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict brings together staff of the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy with research expertise on, and interest in, this practical puzzle: How do contemporary states and international organisations negotiate and communicate with residents of ethnically different origin, elaborate and implement policies of minority protection, maintain and improve relations between group who perceive of themselves as having different, and at times conflicting, perennial identities. The focus of Centre's research on the social and political origins of ethnic conflict, policy instruments of conflict prevention, post conflict reconciliation and peace building, and on comparative analyses of intergroup conflicts across the globe is reflected in teaching offered at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.