The 2025 Notre Dame Student Peace Conference committee announces this year’s event, entitled Unified Paths for Peace: Empowering Collaborative Peacebuilding.

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What makes someone a peacebuilder? Who does the important work of peacebuilding, and who benefits from that work? How might everyone incorporate peacebuilding into their work, regardless of field or discipline? And, how do various fields of study and practice intersect to construct a more peaceful world, and how can we promote that collaboration? 

As we confront the structures of conflict, polarization, and oppression that exist around us, unified collaboration in peacebuilding becomes more imperative. Creating a sustainable and peaceful world requires us to center peacebuilding in everything we do—every discussion, every job, every relationship, and more—such that it becomes a foundational part of our shared existence. The goal of peace, then, becomes the common thread that unifies our work for and with one another.

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As peace studies scholars, we strive to build a framework that is inclusive of all disciplines and that empowers those who have not historically been seen as peacebuilders to reimagine their contributions to a more just world.

We illuminate how peace studies can inform other fields of study and practice through its deeper exploration of the root causes of conflict and pathways for conflict transformation. We explore how business practices, land management, legal systems, or the new reality of AI, for example, will shape our peacebuilding future. We understand that a collaboration of diverse voices and approaches will inspire new and creative paths forward.

This conference will explore how collaboration across scholarly disciplines and areas of practice not only broadens and enriches the field of peace studies but also unifies us behind a common goal. By focusing on creative cross-disciplinary approaches, we aim to empower students, institutions, and disciplines to identify collaborative opportunities that together weave a strong and sustainable pathway to a just and peaceful world.

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We invite all undergraduate and graduate students from all fields of study and practice to propose presentations that expand our current understandings of peace and highlight examples of collaborative peacebuilding. Strong proposals might engage with, but are not limited to, topics such as:

cross-disciplinary efforts

thematic areas of focus

We welcome a variety of session types: lightning talks, short lectures, posters, panel discussions, roundtable discussions, visual artwork, performances, workshops, and other innovative formats. We accept proposals based on experiential learning and practice, as well as those that feature theory or original research.

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Students should review proposal requirements and accepted session formats before beginning the submission process.

The deadline to submit is Friday, January 31, 2025. Please direct all questions about the submission process to the conference organizers at peacecon@nd.edu.