What: International Conference “The Role of Higher Education in Peacebuilding,”
When: 17-25 February, 2025
Where: Universität Innsbruck, Ágnes-Heller-haus
Organised by: Aurora Karazin University Peace Education Hub
This 5-day international conference on “The Role of Higher Education in Peacebuilding” aims to contribute to future research, theory, and practice on how higher education institutions can be drivers of conflict transformation, peacebuilding, and sustainable development. The conference features a full three-day programme agenda preceded by a networking day and followed by a closing day with joint working opportunities.
The conference aims to provide a platform for discussing critical questions about how higher education institutions (HEI) may respond to complex global circumstances threatening world peace by fostering cultures of peace through educational initiatives, activities, and policies.
Find more information here: Call for Papers – PEH Conference
The Conference Programme Committee is calling for abstract submissions from academics and practitioners of peacebuilding and related fields on the following thematic areas:
● Theory and practice of pedagogies of peace and peace education
● Creative and pluriversal avenues of strengthening peace education
● Current challenges to academic freedom and peace education
● Peacebuilding education practices and programmes from conflict-affected societies
● Peacebuilding education efforts across HEI and partners in Ukraine
● Experience-based learning from conflict and post-conflict perspectives
● Support and capacity-building frameworks, programming, and crisis management tools for HEI affected by armed conflicts, mass violence, and atrocities
● Ecosystems and collaboration of formal, non-formal, and informal education actors (public/private, state/NGOs) in mediation and dialogue, non-violence, and peaceful relations
● Epistemicide and ways of decolonising HEI
● Gender, diversity and intersectionality in conflict transformation
● Experiences of HEI from war zones and with post-war reconstruction, recovery, and reconciliation
We invite international experts - both scholars and practitioners in the peacebuilding sector and related fields – higher education policymakers, academics and students from the Aurora universities, their partners and beyond to discuss the challenges and opportunities of HEI in promoting peace.
Submit your Abstract of 500 words to AURORA-Peace-Conference@uibk.ac.at by October 31st.