PRIF successfully evaluated

The Leibniz Association Senate recommends further federal and state funding

Frankfurt/M., July 16, 2020 – Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF/HSFK) will continue to be jointly funded by the Federal Government and the State of Hesse for the next seven years – this was decided by the Leibniz Association Senate based on PRIF’s periodic external academic evaluation in November 2019. In its statement, the Senate confirms the international evaluation panel’s assessment, which acknowledged PRIF’s convincing research strategy and emphasized the successful development of its research agenda. The Senate also stressed that PRIF continues to perform important tasks in providing policy recommendations and communicating new findings to the general public.

The requirements for a successful evaluation are not only excellent research output, but also national and international significance and relevance to the national science policy community. "We are very pleased with the positive evaluation of our work: It acknowledges our strategic development, including the systematic integration of intra-societal conflicts and challenges into research and policy advice. Our plans to further expand scientific and technical approaches in peace and conflict research were also emphatically endorsed. This confirms that we are steering the Institute in the right direction," said Professor Nicole Deitelhoff, PRIF's Managing Director.

Ayse Asar, State Secretary in the Hessen State Ministry for Higher Education, Research, and the Arts, is also pleased with the successful evaluation: “For 50 years, PRIF has investigated how conflicts arise and how they can possibly be resolved without the use of violence – a field of research whose results can prevent suffering and hardship like hardly any other. I am delighted that PRIF, one of the leading peace research institutes in Europe today, is based in Hesse. I congratulate PRIF on its successful evaluation by the Leibniz Association and also on its 50th anniversary. The COVID-19-related postponement of all celebrations will be made up for next year; the motto ‘Peace begins with us’ is timeless.”

In its statement, the Leibniz Association Senate emphasized that the institute has very convincingly expanded its research strategy since the last evaluation in 2012. The statement praises PRIF’s approach of considering peace as a process of decreasing violence, increasing social security, and political freedom in the international system and within individual societies. It also welcomed the fact that PRIF aims to pursue its disciplinary and methodological expansion. The way in which PRIF has taken up the July 2019 recommendation by the Wissenschaftsrat (“German Science Council”) to expand scientific and technical approaches within peace and conflict research also features as a positive element of the evaluation. Finally, the Senate strongly supports PRIF’s plans to further integrate issues of digitization, artificial intelligence and arms control; environment and conflict; and pandemics, biological weapons, and global health into its research agenda.

The wording of the Senate statement can be downloaded from the Leibniz Association’s website (in German)

 


Background

Every member of the Leibniz Association is regularly evaluated externally, every seven years at a minimum. National and international subject-matter experts, informed by detailed reports and a typically two-day visit to the institute, evaluate its recent achievements and structures. The results of the evaluation are recorded in an evaluation report, upon which the evaluated institute may comment. On this basis, the Leibniz Association Senate adopts a science policy recommendation which may support continuing the institution’s funding. This Senate recommendation, together with statements by the responsible departments of the respective federal state and the Federal Government, provides the Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz (“Joint Science Conference”, GWK) with a basis for reviewing the institution’s funding conditions. All committees involved in the evaluation and assessment are exclusively made up of persons not working at Leibniz institutions.

 

Press Contact

Dr Stefan Kroll
Head of Science Communication
Phone: +49 (0)163 7818460
Email: kroll @hsfk .de