European University for Peace, Justice, and Inclusive Societies

ongoing

The commitment to peace, justice, and inclusion is at the core of the European idea and needs to be continuously cultivated. Universities have a strong role to play in the development of teaching, research, and outreach activities fostering the demanding conditions for these values. During recent decades, Europe experienced only a few major armed conflicts. Not least in view of external threats which go far beyond the Russian-Ukrainian war, it is clear that complacency would be profoundly misguided. We need to do more to equip future citizens and institutions with the relevant skills and knowledge on designing change and strengthening diversity towards improved conflict prevention and management, and inclusive societies. This is what EUPeace will commit to doing, by acting on three main levels: We bring our entire academic communities together to generate knowledge, competence and innovative approaches to fostering peace, justice, and inclusion. In a world where material, technical and socio-political aspects of life are intimately connected, all fields, from the Humanities and Social Sciences, to STEM and the Health Sciences, are required to grasp constructive ways of dealing with conflicts. We develop joint and innovative challenge-based teaching and learning experiences in which students from all disciplines learn to understand ultimate and proximate causes of conflict situations – including aspects of technological and environmental interdependencies –, and gain experience in how to shape societal transformations towards peace, justice and inclusion. We come together with our associated partners from our local communities and international networks to co-construct concrete practices and solutions to turn these competencies into impact beyond academia. To achieve this, the exploration of innovative leverage points for impact, such as our focus on teacher training, is key.