Strenghtening Peace Education

The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the extreme military escalation of the Middle East conflict since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, as well as a multitude of other acts of war (such as in Ethiopia, Darfur and Yemen), are perhaps the clearest evidence that many parts of the world are increasingly marked by armed violence. In fact, the last two years (2022 and 2023) have seen a higher number of war deaths than has been the case for several decades. At the same time, global warming and the biodiversity crisis have worsened to such an extent that various regions are tending to become uninhabitable, or at least are under massive pressure. One of the many consequences is famine and devastation. In view of this complex crisis and war constellation, the Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Innsbruck is involved in two Erasmus+ projects that aim to contribute to the development of sustainable cultures of peace by promoting peace education within the framework of formal and non-formal education programmes.

The two projects are the AARMENA project (Academic Alliance for Reconciliation in the Middle East and North Africa), which is coordinated by theJena Centre for Reconciliation Studies and involves cooperation with universities in Jordan and Palestine, whereby Al-Azhar University in Gaza has now been almost completely destroyed, which makes the project even more topical. On the other hand, the Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies is also involved in the PeaceEdu project (curriculum Reform to Promote Education for Peace in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova), which is coordinated by the Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI) and represents a collaboration with universities and NGOs in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. What both projects have in common is their specific focus on peace education, with the development of professional, institutional and personal competences taking centre stage, for which the Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies bears the main academic responsibility in both cases.

The parallel project meetings in Innsbruck served on the one hand to discuss the implementation of the individual Master's programmes with different focal points (communal peacebuilding, cybersecurity, digital peacebuilding, etc.) as well as future joint project ideas with the members of the AARMENA project, which is coming to an end after three eventful years. On the other hand, the members of the PeaceEdu project, which is currently in its first year, discussed how the needs of the participating countries in Eastern Europe (Russian occupation and aggression, ethnocultural conflicts, institutional crises, etc.) can be taken into account in such a way that an integrated and at the same time well-founded concept for the promotion of peace education through specific education and training programmes can be developed. As it is to be feared that armed violence will increase rather than decrease in the coming years and that other crises will also continue to intensify, the area of peace work through peace education, in which the Innsbruck Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies specialises, is of particular importance for the future.

(Andreas Oberprantacher)

You may find the German version of this article here.