About Us

Four objectives

1. Build a European Network on conflict management
We aim to strengthen the relationships between academics and practitioners on heated topics in conflict and conflict management in Europe in order to work together, collaborate on research projects, collect data in different cultures and share knowledge - both with each other and with the international academic society. We also aim to include practitioners to stimulate mutual knowledge transfer and to enable co-creation between scholars and practitioners of, for example, new methods and interventions.

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2. Dissemination of knowledge - continuous conferences

We encourage the transfer of knowledge between academics and between researchers and professional practices in a flexible manner.

We are no longer bound to place and time to meet and discuss our work. Virtual conferencing creates new forms of meeting. Based on participants’ interests and time-frames, we can organize small group meetings, webinars or high quality feedback sessions. We will do so regularly and dispersed over the year (see Activities section). Instead of one large conference, we thus will come together in form of several short online sessions throughout the year, which may be easier to plan in busy schedules and facilitates a much stronger relationship between the network members. It also allows (for instance PhD’s) to present and discuss research when it matters – for instance during theory development, data collection or before the first submission.

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3. Support young scholars in the field
Many times, young researchers and other academic staff are looking for experts to help them develop their research and provide constructive and challenging feedback. We aim to provide young scholars with feedback from international experts by organizing individual or group sessions. This will help to strengthen the intergenerational relations and contribute to continuous learning, challenging, and inspiring each other. More importantly, it will facilitate creation of the future network of European conflict management experts.

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4. Enable twenty-first century academic competences

The modern academic of the 21st century needs new skills. Our conceptual era and the available technology offer great opportunities for young talent to develop international networks and innovate research practices. However, this requires development of skills, such as becoming proactive and self-organizing.

The prevailing academic model in Europe, is still too often a model where PhD students are trained and socialized in the operations developed by their mentors. It is often a hierarchical model, in which PhD students are hardly encouraged to develop competences such as self-organization, networking, proactively building their research niche, organizing their own feedback, developing modern forms of dissemination, and using social media and related technology for knowledge development and communication. Our network aims to open the floor for young scholars to develop such competences by inviting a bottom-up approach in shaping the content of our conference sessions based on their needs. Our platform will provide  (young and senior) academics with information and competences to develop a bottom-up approach.

Among these competences, also cooperative conflict skills are key, and E4C aims to promote preventive, cooperative and peacemaking competences for academics.