![[Translate to English:]](/fileadmin/HSFK/images/thumbnails/FP_NEWS.jpg "Research Program Cover")
The new research program presents itself as a framework that connects the fundamental mission of PRIF as a peace and conflict research institute, the current research agenda of the institute, as well as its core units and cross-cutting research areas. Unlike the temporally limited and thematically focused research programs of the past, the new research program is thematically broader and more flexible. It responds to the institute's growth and the continuous expansion of the research agenda through new research topics, formats, and collaborations.
The institute's classical core and key research fields, such as arms control and disarmament, international norms, regimes and organizations, armed conflict and organized violence, military and non-military interventions, peacebuilding and democratization, as well as nonviolent social conflicts and societal peace, have been addressed for several years within the five research departments. In addition, there are smaller, more agile research groups, mostly attached to a research department (RD), but they can also operate across RDs. These groups consolidate expertise and coordinate research on a specific topic. They can come together quickly, sometimes for a limited period of time. Currently these are: emerging technologies, regime competition, African intervention politics, biological and chemical weapons, public international law, terrorism, and radicalization.
These research formats are complemented by cross-cutting research areas. These areas focus on current political developments and scientific debates, promoting collaboration between research departments and with national and international research partners. These research areas vary greatly in terms of the degree and forms of coordination. Some are embedded in broader, third-party funded collaborative projects and therefore have their own institutional structure. Others bring researchers, research projects, and research findings at PRIF together more flexibly and ad hoc by using the institute's established bodies and formats. Current cross-cutting research areas include: transformations of political violence, challenges and transformations of political rule, radicalization and social cohesion, conflict and trust, as well as gender, diversity, and conflict.
All research units do not run alongside each other, but are interconnected, emphasizing exchange and collaboration, thus creating synergies. With this research architecture, the institute sees itself well-positioned to conduct empirical and theoretical basic research in the future, provide critical input for scientific and political debates at the national and international levels, and, in line with the Leibniz Association's motto “Theoria cum Praxi”, to provide research-driven and impartial policy advice and knowledge transfer.
As a “living document”, the new research programme is not limited in time, but is designed to be permanent. It will be reviewed, expanded and supplemented at regular intervals.