The Centre for Peace Studies is a research and co-ordination project in Peace Studies at the University of Tromsø, Norway. The project is funded for the period 2002-2006. Inspired by the conference Higher Education for Peace on 4-6 May 2000, dreams, ambitions and hopes for such a project saw results when in November 2001 The Norwegian Parliament awarded two million Norwegian kroner to establish a national and international centre for Peace Studies. In the assignment letter from The Department it is stated that “the Centre is to establish new competence within the field of peace- and conflict-studies, and within such areas as ethnicity and democracy-building. The centre is to have a co-ordinating role for the field, both nationally and internationally.”

The Centre is also in charge of a two-year master programme in Peace and Conflict Transformation at the University of Tromsø, which has been taught since August 2002. August 2003 will see a new class intake, following a very successful experience with our first class.

In the field of Peace Research, our main position is to focus on non-violent forms of conflict resolution, emphasizing the task of building a positive, sustainable peace. In other words, our task is not primarily to analyze wars or keep an account of wars, armament or civil wars, but rather to focus how – and on what basis – a civil and transnational, sustainable peace can be built. In November 2002 this work started with a symposium on non-violence, where leading experts on Peace Research from all continents met in Tromsø to establish the current status of the field and point the way ahead. The Centre has the following policy statement.

Our brief history has revolved around widespread national and international activities in order to keep up to date with current research, engage in such research, build and maintain networks, document education and supervision capacity on a national scale, prepare for the assigned, co-ordinating role on a national scale in the field of Peace Education, and create an updated database in this field.

For the time being, the centre is organized as a four-year project (2002-2006) within the Faculty of Social Science, with a relatively autonomous position and the discretion to pursue strategies and activities of its own choosing. The academic staff is headed by the Academic coordinator Diane Lister, and comprise the Associate Professor in International Politics Stuart Robinson (on research leave) and the Associate professor in pedagogics Vidar Vambheim

The administrative staff is composed of Project manager Jochen Peters and Senior executive officer, Hildegunn Bruland and Executive officer Alberto Valiente Thoresen