Researchers, negotiators, and policymakers convene at Yale to advance the science of peace

A wide range of experts convened at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs on April 20–21: peace negotiators, political scientists, neuroscientists, humanitarian lawyers, AI researchers, and anthropologists. The 2026 Yale Peacebuilding Colloquium unfolded over two days — one devoted to public talks, the other to practical planning for the United Nations General Assembly in September. The event was organized by Peacebuilding Initiative co-directors Cara Fallon, Catherine Panter-Brick, David Simon, Bonnie Weir, and Yale Jackson postdoctoral fellow Qusai Khraisha. 

In his keynote address, Sergio Jaramillo — Colombia’s former High Commissioner for Peace, who led four years of negotiations with far-left guerrilla group the FARC — offered a framework for understanding why peace agreements succeed or fail. He described peace as existing inside an envelope that the parties to a conflict must draw together and hold open long enough for an agreement to take hold. The deeper challenge, he argued, is not diplomatic but political: when internal war runs through a democracy, politicians become actors in the conflict, with positions to defend and votes to win. Effective peace work must move in concert with that political process — not parallel to it, not on a separate timeline.

In service of peace

That argument found an echo in three presentations focused on democracy after war. Josip Glaurdić and Ensar Muharemović of the Université du Luxembourg, who lead the CONSENT BIH project, discussed constitutional engagement through the lens of citizen agency. Then Damir Kapidžić of the University of Sarajevo explained the value of national citizens’ assemblies for post-conflict reconciliation policy. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, three decades after the Dayton Accords, democratic institutions seem frozen. Hélène Landemore, professor of political science at Yale and author of Open Democracy, offered a possible answer in the form of open mini-publics — randomly selected, jury-like groups of citizens with real deliberative power. Together, the talks identified how to unlock political processes and pointed to credible pathways grounded in citizen voice. 

A second panel took up artificial intelligence as an emerging layer of peacebuilding infrastructure. Lisa Schirch, the Richard G. Starmann, Sr. Professor of the Practice of Peace Studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs, presented work on what she calls peacetech and civictech — digital tools designed to strengthen democratic life. Branka Panić, founder and executive director of AI for Peace and co-author of AI for Peace (Routledge, 2024), presented applications of AI in mediation, early warning, hate-speech detection, and human-rights investigation. Together they sketched what it would take for technologies now reshaping civic life to serve peace rather than hollow it out — and made clear that none of these tools is neutral. Who builds them, on whose data, and accountable to whom determines what they do in the world. Mark Freeman, founder of the Institute for Integrated Transition, addressed how AI is increasingly used in peace negotiation processes and discussed the potential gains and shortcomings of doing so. 

Two speakers brought environmental and diplomatic dimensions to the conversation. Drew Marcantonio of Notre Dame, author of Environmental Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2022), made the case for regenerative environmental peacebuilding: building resilient communities that do less damage to their environments and depend less on fragile global supply chains — communities less likely to be tipped into conflict by the shocks ahead. Federica Du Pasquier, formerly of the International Committee of the Red Cross and now at the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA), described a new model of anticipatory diplomacy that brings scientific, legal, and policy expertise together before crises break out. These talks emphasized why the fields of environment and law are highly relevant to peacebuilding.

Building a culture of peace

A significant portion of the colloquium centered on the science of early childhood as a foundation for peacebuilding — work developed across programs in Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Türkiye, Colombia, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Jordan, and Ghana through the Early Childhood Peace Consortium (ECPC), a global alliance of researchers, UN agencies, and frontline practitioners. This work is carried forward by colleagues such as Suna Hanöz-Penney of AÇEV and Katie Murphy of the Moving Minds Alliance, who spoke about the Consortium’s engagement in research, advocacy, and policy.

The argument rests on rigorous evidence: children raised with responsive caregiving develop the capacity for empathy and prosocial behavior; programs that support caregivers reduce violence in the home and build social cohesion across communities; and trauma, which can alter gene expression in ways that pass across generations, can be healed.  A short video prepared by postgraduate students Amelia Colliver, Sochima Okafor, and Emma Tomlinson made the case, tracing pathways from family to community caregiving to building a culture of peace.

“The science is ready,” Panter-Brick said in concluding remarks. “It is not yet driving policy and funding decisions. That is the work this room exists to do.”

Last September, the Consortium presented this work at a High Level Week event at the United Nations General Assembly, hosted by the Mission of Ireland.

Next steps

The Colloquium’s second day focused on next steps. One workshop laid the groundwork for new collaborative research in Bosnia and Herzegovina; the other focused on planning ECPC activities to advance the culture of peace agenda. Both initiatives aim to move evidence into policy and place it in the hands of ambassadors, state delegations, and mission staff ahead of the next United Nations General Assembly.