Institution and Team
The Rhineland-Palatinate Peace Academy is a central research institution at the RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau. It was established to build bridges between academic peace and conflict research, civil society practitioners in this field, and the regional public. The Peace Academy is based at the RPTU’s Landau campus but has a mandate that extends across the entire state and beyond—both in terms of its networking activities and its areas of focus.
The Peace Academy team consists of the director, research staff, and student assistants. In addition, there are a number of “associates”—mostly former staff members who remain connected to the Peace Academy in various ways. The academic backgrounds of the research staff are diverse but are predominantly in the social sciences—particularly peace and conflict studies, (human) geography, and political science. Among the student assistants are also representatives from psychology and philological disciplines.
The Peace Academy is supported in its work by an advisory board, whose structure reflects the Academy’s role as a bridge between “academia” and civil society. In addition, there is an Association of Friends & Supporters that supports the Peace Academy’s work beyond the university setting.
Tasks
The Peace Academy is an academic institution that conducts basic research in the field of peace and conflict studies. However, the Peace Academy differs from traditional academic institutions in that the integration of“research and outreach”plays a special role. This means that all research conducted by the Peace Academy is always viewed from the perspective of its practical application or within the context of public debate.
One form of this practical orientation is contributions to training and teaching. Training here refers to conducting or supporting continuing education programs, particularly for multipliers from the fields of civil society and school education. Furthermore, while staff members of the Peace Academy are not required to engage in academic teaching, they voluntarily and regularly contribute to courses at the university; this serves, on the one hand, to train future multipliers and, on the other hand, to support the Peace Academy’s integration into the university.
In addition to “Research and Knowledge Transfer” and “Training and Teaching,” the Peace Academy’s third area of work can be summarized as debate and networking, to which the Peace Academy devotes considerable resources. On the one hand, it maintains a presence on social media and runs an active blog featuring various formats, as well as a widely acclaimed podcast. On the other hand, the Peace Academy organizes a whole series of public events at various locations in Rhineland-Palatinate or supports them as a co-organizer. The range of topics and formats for these events is deliberately extremely diverse. In this way, they reflect the Peace Academy’s research topics but also go well beyond them when addressing current events. In terms of event formats, the spectrum ranges from online events and panel discussions to low-threshold activities in pedestrian zones and artistic projects.
The history of the Peace Academy
Discussions regarding the establishment of a Peace Academy in Rhineland-Palatinate date back to the state government’s 2011 coalition agreement. This led to the founding in November 2013 of the supporting association “Peace Academy Rhineland-Palatinate,” which was established with the involvement of fifteen prominent figures from various educational institutions and civil society initiatives. In January 2014, the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament revisited the idea of establishing a peace academy and called on the state government to support the work of the sponsoring association. Funding for the establishment of the Peace Academy was allocated for the first time in the 2014–15 state budget.
In July 2014, the University of Koblenz-Landau granted the association the status of a “special scientific institution” pursuant to § 96 of the Rhineland-Palatinate Higher Education Act (HochSchG RLP), allowing the first staff members to be hired as of September 1, 2014—Anti-War Day—and enabling work to begin at the Frank-Loeb House in Landau. In the presence of representatives from politics, business, academia, and the media, the Academy was officially opened at Hambach Castle on March 9, 2015.
In 2019, the institutional and personnel consolidation process was completed: While preserving the Academy’s character, the Peace Academy was fully integrated into the university as a “Central Academic Institution” in accordance with § 90 of the Rhineland-Palatinate Higher Education Act (HochSchG RLP). With its full integration into the university, the sponsoring association had fulfilled its original purpose and changed its name in 2019 to“Association of Friends and Supporters of the Peace Academy,”while at the same time the accompanying advisory board for the Peace Academy was established. Since January 2023, the Peace Academy has been part of the newly merged RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau.