The School of Peace and Conflict Studies (SPCS) has partnered with Design Innovation (DI) at Kent State University to co-sponsor the DI + SPCS Faculty Fellows program focused on peace and conflict themes. The program is open to all full-time KSU faculty and provides funding to cover the costs associated with workload reallocation so that the awardee can undertake collaborative, cross-disciplinary work on a theme related peace and conflict studies.
Proposals for the Fellowship can address the causes, dynamics, prevention, resolution and/or transformation of conflicts. They can be concerned with the psychological, inter-personal, workplace, community, national, and/or international dimensions of peace and conflict. Proposals may address the problem of direct violence (e.g., physical violence, armed violence), or the various forms of structural violence that prevent humans reaching their full potential and/or the varied forms of violence perpetrated on non-human life. Proposals may also be concerned with strategies designed to promote either negative peace (the absence of war), or positive peace (systems and social structures that enable people and communities to reach their full human potential; and that support and nurture local, national, and planetary ecologies).
The selected Faculty Fellow may disseminate the results of their work via lectures, workshops, and presentations at the SPCS colloquia series, as well as other forms of feedback to KSU students, faculty, and alumni. The aim of the program is to increase awareness of both DI and SPCS, and to help facilitate a cultural change towards a university-wide innovation mindset focused on peace/conflict management projects.
Neil Cooper, the Director of SPCS said, “we are really pleased to partner with Design Innovation on this initiative. One of the defining features of the field of peace and conflict studies is that is interdisciplinary, drawing on insights from the social sciences, the humanities, and the natural sciences. This new program helps to foster that interdisciplinary tradition across the university by supporting research, teaching, and/or applied work in the field that can inform our own practice here in the School of Peace and Conflict Studies, but also work on questions of peace more generally across the university. This is an exciting new initiative for SPCS, and I look forward to seeing how the results of this program are translated into new ways of thinking about, practicing, and teaching peace”.
The deadline for applications is 5:00 pm, Friday, March 31st, 2023. More details on the program and the application process can be found at: https://kent.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Z7sin8nrj80QNU.