I am delighted to welcome you to the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice.

The Institute was established in August 2012 with a director, two senior fellows, five research fellows and an administrative and clerical team who together with a number of affiliated staff will be responsible for shaping the Institute’s research directions and managing delivery of its programme of activities. 

A core aim of the Institute is to foster strong interdisciplinary research collaborations among the best scholars working on conflict transformation and social justice at Queen’s and to develop international partnerships with leading researchers and organisations working on issues of related concern.

Our approach is interdisciplinary and comparative.  Given the unique history of conflict and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, researchers at Queen’s are well-placed to offer a unique perspective on many of today’s difficult research challenges, both in Ireland and across the globe.

A broad range of disciplines across all faculties within the university offer significant research expertise on the cultural, political, economic, structural, spatial, policy, health-related and other dimensions of conflict transformation in both historical and contemporary Ireland.  At the same time, our research expertise in the study of conflict elsewhere – across Europe as well as in South Asia, the Middle East, South-East Asia and Latin America – expertise which our recent appointments have consolidated and extended, advance the Institute’s ambition to develop truly comparative perspectives on conflict transformation and social justice.

These research strengths and this comparative approach will form the bedrock of a graduate programme open to the best students worldwide, a programme which we aim to make of global significance and attractive to students seeking to undertake taught post-graduate and research degrees in areas such as peace-building, transition, human rights and the area of conflict amelioration generally.

As a new Institute, it is clearly important that we are alert to on-going global events and anticipate new trends to ensure that our research plans address the future challenges that face us all.  It is critical that we create an open environment in which research users, policy makers, community groups and other non-academics will wish to be involved and will feel able to contribute their distinctive insights into conflict transformation and social justice.

In the coming months we hope to have a number of exciting new announcements to make, as well as news of a series of high profile launch events provisionally scheduled for late May/early June. In the meantime, I would very much welcome hearing from you with your ideas and thoughts about how the Institute might best develop and facilitate your work.