scholarly journals Editor’s Reflections: Developing New Programs in Peace and Conflict Studies

Author(s):  
Honggang Yang

The field of peace and conflict studies has grown remarkably around the globe over the past few decades. In this new millennium, there will be a greater number of educational offerings being considered or launched in various higher education institutions, for the community and the world are in need of such interdisciplinary inquiries and multi-professional applications. As a long-time academic facilitator and administrator, I would like to take this opportunity to share with the PCS readers some of my experiences and observations in this arena, from an administrative and financial perspective. My hope is to assist colleagues and students in initiating more programs in peace and conflict studies across campuses.

Author(s):  
Jamil Salmi

In the past decade, however, accountability has become a major concern in most parts of the world. Governments, parliaments, and society at large are increasingly asking universities to justify the use of public resources and account more thoroughly for their teaching and research results. The universal push for increased accountability has made the role of university leaders much more demanding. The successful evolution of higher education institutions will hinge on finding an appropriate balance between credible accountability practices and favorable autonomy conditions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sapir Handelman ◽  
Frederic S. Pearson

AbstractThis article presents a contractualist approach to peace and conflict studies that grows out of classical paradigms in the field. The contractualist approach proposes a solution to intractable conflicts through processes such as a public negotiating congress to transform conflicting parties into a large peacemaking community. The vision of an ideal congress is based on the multi-party talks that had operated in South Africa and Northern Ireland during the 1990s. The challenge is to establish a similar peacemaking institution in cases such as the Israeli-Palestinian dispute where ordinary citizens are at the center of the struggle. This article includes theoretical background, analysis of relevant case studies, and lessons from the Minds of Peace Experiment, a small-scale Israeli-Palestinian public negotiating congress that has held sessions in various locations around the world.


2021 ◽  
pp. 17-20
Author(s):  
Stefania Giannini

AbstractWhether a university was founded centuries ago or in recent decades, the past 70 years have seen momentous change in the landscape of higher education and its place in our societies. The year 2020, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the International Association of Universities (IAU), witnessed change that no forecast had anticipated: the closure or re-alignment to online learning of nearly all higher education institutions in the world, affecting some 220 million students in 175 countries.


2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Kester

This article examines higher education for peace inside the United Nations (UN). It offers an overview and synthesis of core concepts, organizing frameworks and theoretical premises in the field of peace and conflict studies (PACS) higher education and in the UN universities in particular, as the field aspires toward transformative learning and social justice. The article then critically analyzes the ways in which the field might perpetuate structural and cultural violence and offers implications for the UN universities. In these critiques, I call for further inquiry into the taken-for-granted assumptions of the field and suggest greater criticality along with enhanced empathy and hope for PACS education in the 21st century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-150
Author(s):  
Philip Gamaghelyan

Abstract The field of peace and conflict studies has been maturing over the past few decades, not least thanks to the continual epistemological contestation between its philosophy and methodology. As a consequence, the methods of conflict resolution practice have been evolving. Dominated by realist approaches of conflict management during the Cold War, the field in the 1990s relied heavily on neo-liberal theories of economic interdependence, democracy building, and interest-based negotiations that can bring win-win outcomes. By the late 2000s, as the constructivist paradigm and critical theory started gaining ground in academia, the conceptual conversation shifted toward the possibilities of building inclusive societies and achieving structural and cultural peace via conflict transformation, rather than resolution, as the respective methodology.


Author(s):  
N.R. Madhava Menon

The purpose of looking at Indian universities in a comparative perspective is obviously to locate it among higher education institutions across the world and to identify its strengths and weaknesses in the advancement of learning and research. In doing so, one can discern the directions for reform in order to put the university system in a competitive advantage for an emerging knowledge society. This chapter looks at the current state of universities in India and highlights the initiatives under way for change and proposes required policy changes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-30
Author(s):  
Jyldyzbek Jakshylykov ◽  

The Kyrgyz higher education institutions are failing to meet the newly emerging challenges. Despite the efforts and jobs done, the effective results are not being achieved in the education and research sphere as desired. In this article, we give the examples of “Lean principles” implementations around the world as one of the solutions to the above mentioned challenge. In the last part of the article, we discuss a status quo of these principles in Kyrgyz higher education system.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerald Ozee Fernandes ◽  
Balgopal Singh

PurposeThe higher education system has been entrusted globally to provide quality education, especially to the youth, and equip them with required skills and capabilities. The visionaries and policymakers of the countries around the world have been working relentlessly to improve the standard of the higher education system by establishing national and global accreditation and ranking bodies and expecting measuring performance through setting up accreditation and ranking parameters. This paper focuses on the review of Indian university accreditation and ranking system and determining its efficacy in improving academic quality for achieving good position in global quality accreditation and ranking.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed exploratory research approach to know about the accreditation and ranking issues of Indian higher education institutions to overcome the challenges for being globally competitive. The accreditation and ranking parameters and score of leading Indian universities was collected from secondary data sources. Similarly, the global ranking parameters and scores of these Indian universities with top global universities was explored. The performance gaps of Indian university in global academic quality parameter is assessed by comparing it with scores of global top universities. Further, each domestic and global accreditation and ranking parameters have been taken up for discussion.FindingsThe study identified teaching and learning, research and industry collaboration as common parameter in the accreditation and ranking by Indian and global accreditation and ranking body. Furthermore, the study revealed that Indian accreditation and ranking body assess leniently on parameters and award high scores as compared to rigorous global accreditation and ranking practice. The study revealed that “research” and “citations” are important parameters for securing prestigious position in global ranking, this is the reason Indian universities are trailing. The study exposed that Indian academic fraternity lack prominence in research, publication and citations as per need of global accreditation and ranking standards.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of this study is that it focused only on few Indian and global accreditation and ranking bodies. The future implication of this study will be the use of methodology designed in this study for comparing accreditation and ranking bodies’ parameters of different continents and countries in different economic development stages i.e. emerging and developed economies to know the disparity and shortcomings in their higher education system.Practical implicationsThe article is a review and comparison of national and global accreditation and ranking parameters. The article explored the important criteria and key indicators of accreditation and ranking that would provide an important and meaningful insight to academic institutions of the emerging economies of the world to develop its competitiveness. The study contributed to the literature on identifying benchmark for improving academic and higher education institution quality. This study would be further helpful in fostering new ideas toward setting up of contemporary globally viable and acceptable academic quality standard.Originality/valueThis is possibly the first study conducted with novel methodology of comparing the Indian and global accreditation and ranking parameters to identify the academic quality performance gap and suggesting ways to attain academic benchmark through continuous improvement activity and process for global competitiveness.


Due to the threat posed by COVID-19, many colleges and universities around the world opted to switch to online courses and smart working to keep their students, professors, and staff safe during the pandemic emergency. Face-to-face classes, including labs and workshops, have been canceled and substituted with online activities. New administrative procedures have also been established to support the emergency remote education. This article analyzes these changes in light of the experiences of three higher education institutions in different countries, namely Latvia, Poland, and Italy. From this analysis, some aspects have emerged that have stimulated a deeper reflection on the use of digital technology in higher education. .


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document