The Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS), Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), and Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) are pleased to announce the Peace & Conflict Fellowship. The semester-long fellowship, which spans February – April 2019, provides a select group of eight AUIS students skills and experience in conflict and peace-building. The fellowship includes three components:

1) Master Classes: Four master class seminars will be given by experts in conflict and peace-building, addressing the following four themes: (1) Conflict analysis; (2) Peace-building strategies; (3) Post-Conflict Stabilization; (4) Substate Forces and Governance Challenges.

2) Reporting & Presentations: Fellows produce a policy brief (1000 words) on the themes addressed in the master classes, using GPPi case studies as the base source material in addition to desktop research on the current situation. The papers will be peer reviewed by a panel of three scholars, and the top paper writers will be given the opportunity to give an IRIS public lecture on their report. Those of a high quality may also be published on the IRIS and/or GPPi websites.

3) NGO Career Day: The fellowship involves a one-day trip to Erbil to visit heads of NGOs working in the fields of conflict, peace-building, and security. The purpose of the trip will be to expose fellows to the career trajectories of security and peace-building practitioners. Funding This inaugural Peace and Conflict Fellows program is supported as part of a larger, three-year project that aims to increase empirical research, knowledge-sharing and policy solutions surrounding local and substate forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. Funding is provided by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.