The Conflict and Civicness Research Group (CCRG) at LSE is one of the world’s leading centres for the study of conflict, peace and how communities within conflict affected societies can be empowered to participate in transitions to peace and human rights. The CCRG’s collective of interdisciplinary scholars uniquely straddle academia, policy, and practice and are individually trained in politics, economics, history, anthropology, international relations, and in one instance, astrophysics. As a whole, the group has decades of experience that is shaped by the changing nature of conflict and peace processesfrom the conclusion of the second world war, through to the end of the Cold War and the ‘War on Terror’, into the present era of global fragmentation and populism’s resurgence.

The CCRG’s overarching objective is to assist scholars, policymakers and activists rethink how violence takes place across the world’s most intractable conflicts and in turn innovate policies that can empower communities in conflict to forge peace and human rights. The CCRG’s approach is rooted in civicness, which is a logic of public authority based on consent that is voluntarily generated through shared deliberative processes based upon norms and rules that value respect for persons. This includes practices that sustain integrity, trust, civility, inclusion and dialogue, and nonviolence. Unlike traditional approaches to the study of conflict, the CCRG extensively supports and collaborates with in-country research networks. This includes one of the most expansive networks of researchers in Syria, a feminist collective of researchers in Sudan, and the Bridge Network of South Sudanese researchers.

The Conflict and Civicness Research Group is headed by Professor Mary Kaldor, who is one of the world’s leading scholars on the changing nature of war and violence in the 21st century and is comprised of country-based research teams and topical specialists. Country teams include: Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, both Sudans, and Ukraine which are respectively headed by Marika Theros, Dr Rim Turkmani, Dr Nisar Majid, Dr Matthew Benson and Dr Luke Cooper. Dr Matthew Benson is also the Research Manager of the group and Alice Bryant works as the CCRG’s Programme Manager.

The CCRG is primarily grant financed, with projects that include support from the UK-Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)-funded Peace and Conflict Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, James Anderson, and the Open Society Initiative.