The Centre for Peace Studies started out as a research and co-ordination project in Peace and Conflict Studies at the

University of Tromsø The University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway (Norwegian: ''Universitetet i Tromsø – Norges arktiske universitet''; Northern Sami: ''Romssa universitehta – Norgga árktalaš universitehta'') is a state university in Norway an ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. The project was initially funded for the period 2002-2006 and became permanent in 2007. 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 The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years bas ...

awarded the funds needed to establish a national and international centre for Peace Studies. The assignment letter states 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's Programme in Peace and Conflict Transformation at the University of Tromsø, which has been taught since August 2002. In the field of

Peace Research Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts (including social conflicts), with a view towards understanding those pr ...

, the centre's main position is to focus on non-violent forms of

conflict resolution Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of conflict and retribution. Committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information abo ...

, emphasizing the task of building a positive, sustainable peace. In other words, the centre's 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 Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies in Northern Norway. The municipality is the ...

to establish the current status of the field and point the way ahead.

External links

Centre for Peace StudiesUniversity of Tromsø, Norway
{{DEFAULTSORT:Centre for Peace Studies, Tromso University of Tromsø