Research

Peace, justice, and inclusive societies are crucial challenges for Europe and for humanity as a whole. Combining our academic strengths to address these challenges, we will set up a series of Alliance-wide Research Hubs, leveraging the work of laboratories, which either directly relate to peace and justice, or research their underlying conditions. All academic disciplines will thus be mobilised in consortium-wide research collaborations.

These Research Hubs will be a place for researchers from the Alliance to build common research projects that have a deep impact by being coupled with two more activities:

First, the Research Hubs will be invited to contribute to graduate studies, at the Master and doctoral levels, which will be a signature for the EUPeace Alliance and will make it a hub for the training of the next generation of researchers on the topic.

Second, the Research Hubs will be invited to develop a proactive policy of societal outreach, including both scientific dissemination in the classical sense and a service of expertise to the public. EUPeace will make sure that the academic expertise on the topics related to peace, justice, and inclusion can be of service to public actors (local, national, and European authorities), associations, and citizens within our own regions. The key enabler of this line will be the EUPeace Living Peace Lab.

Beyond this targeted effort to scale up a series of focused Research Hubs, EUPeace we will create the space for our researchers to develop joint projects without thematic constraints. EUPeace will therefore facilitate intra-European mobility of researchers and academic staff from all EUPeace universities. This will foster collaborations between researchers and support staff, leverage synergies between research teams, and contribute to bringing our institutions closer together. Creating a strong network of collaboration between our communities will thus support the long-term trajectory and sustainability of the Alliance, by making the Alliance relevant at all levels: institutions, faculties, departments, research groups and individual staff and students. The establishment of the EUPeace Fund was a first step to support mobility between our institutions. 

The work package Research Hubs and Doctoral Studies has started its work by establishing two pilot Research Hubs building on the existing cooperation between centres of excellence: the Security and Conflict Transformation Research Hub and the Climate Science and Just Transition Research Hub, which both mobilise existing strengths in Peace and Conflict Studies as well as Climate Science and Environmental Justice. Building on a call for further EUPeace Research Hubs in Spring 2024, two further Research Hubs have been established, the Research Hub Migration and Human Rights and the Research Hub Inclusive Health and Well-Being. The Research Hubs foster collaboration in all subject areas of the Alliance in order to create excellent inter- and transdisciplinary research in the field of peace, justice, and inclusive societies. This also includes the natural sciences as well as engineering. Special focus is put on emerging fields in transdisciplinary research.

The results from the activities of the Research Hubs actively contribute to the internal and external communication and dissemination activities of the Alliance. Organised through the Research Hubs, the member universities will take turns hosting regular mobile (blended/hybrid) interdisciplinary seminars on peace, justice, and inclusive societies. In addition, they will host annual Research Impact Conferences where actors from outside academia will be centrally involved as well. The Research Impact Conference 2024 is organised by the Research Hub Security and Conflict Transformation on the "The Historicities of Security and Peace".

As a link between research and teaching, we will ensure that the results from the activities of the Research Hubs flow back into teaching. Both Master’s and doctoral candidates will be actively involved in the activities of the Research Hubs, as, for example, Master’s students will learn state-of-heart knowledge from EUPeace doctoral candidates as well as from experienced lecturers; and EUPeace doctoral candidates will have the chance to tutor Master’s students. In this way, the Research Hubs support innovative teaching methods. Master theses will be co-reviewed by senior Alliance researchers, and outstanding thesis work will be included in the interdisciplinary mobile seminars, the annual research conferences of the Alliance, and the outreach activities, to stimulate the dialogue between science and society.

The establishment of a EUPeace Doctoral Network within the framework of the Research Hubs will support doctoral candidates. A EUPeace PhD initiative is being established to provide support to early career scholars. The initiative consists of two pillars: (1) A network of the existing graduate schools in the Alliance opens existing courses and events to all doctoral candidates of the Alliance; (2) The establishment of a EUPeace-specific Doctoral Network provides for structured joint doctoral training of a fixed group in the Alliance. Within the EUPeace Doctoral Network, doctoral candidates are supervised bi- or multi-nationally and conduct their doctorate within the framework of co-tutelle procedures. The doctoral candidates come together for regular colloquia/symposia where they discuss the progress of their projects.

Furthermore, an Early-Career Network for post-doctoral researchers is being established to maximise employability in academic and non-academic fields. The network offers mentoring on career development and outreach, e.g. exchanges of experience, collegial advice, scientific writing skills, trial interviews or exchanges on prerequisites for scientific career paths in different European countries. Participants of the early-career network will be invited to hold presentations on their on-going work as part of the interdisciplinary peace, justice, and inclusive societies mobile regular seminars, and during the annual Research Impact Conferences. 

In order to implement and develop the sustainability and capacity-building of the Research Hubs, the Alliance will initiate EUPeace Fellowships. The fellowships serve to promote cooperation and mobility, and to stimulate bids for funding by the Research Hubs. The EUPeace Fellows will be funded by scholarships and will be mobile from their home institution to another member institution. Consistent with the values of EUPeace, recruitment will be based on transparent and inclusive access criteria, emphasising the benefit of diversity for innovative research.

By founding Creative Spaces in the context of the Research Hubs, EUPeace is offering more flexible and consciously less focused places for the exchange between scientific disciplines on issues related to peace, justice, and inclusive societies. These Creative Spaces function as strongly transdisciplinary think tanks for the development of innovative and creative ideas for the future. The focus here is on an open exchange on scientific questions and ideally on the participation of all disciplines represented in the Alliance. The activities of the Creative Spaces are deliberately open ended, they can - but do not have to - lead to applications for funding (for example under Horizon Europe) or projects with society or business companies.

The Alliance will also establish joint research infrastructures and open lab policies for the relevant laboratories and research facilities of each member. This activity aims at removing infrastructural barriers for Alliance researchers, and supports practical solutions to foster scientific inclusion.