News

An anonymous $500,000 donation has been made to the University of Otago’s National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. Centre Director Professor Kevin Clements said that the donor, an Auckland businessman, does not want personal recognition.

“He believes very strongly in the importance of peace education and learning as important factors in the generation of peaceable citizens and a peaceful world. His wife is a graduate of this University and both of them feel that Otago is the right place for this National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.”

Since 2010 the department has taught postgraduate programmes at the Master’s and PhD levels. The Centre conducts research into the causes of social and political conflict and what conditions are required for sustainable peace. They also provide advice to government and non-governmental organisations engaged in peace-building.

The money will be used to turn a temporary lecturing position into a permanent position focused on peace education, and to extend a postdoctoral fellowship on the economics of war and peace. “As the world shrinks [due to] global communications and transportation, it is essential that we work out ways in which we can learn to live together in an increasingly shrinking planet,” Prof Clements explained.

The Centre has heavily relied on donations in its four-year history to carry out research on “some of the biggest challenges facing the world in the 21st century.” In the past, the Centre has received two additional anonymous donations (sent through the Centre’s own Trust) of $500,000 each, and $570,000 from the Global Futures Centre Trust. These donations have also been used to fund faculty positions and doctoral scholarships.

The donations have allowed the Centre to expand from one professor, a personal assistant and no students to five tenured faculty members, one postdoctoral fellow, a Centre administrator, 25 PhD students, 13 Master’s students and 19 postgraduate diploma students.

The Centre was quick to mention that they are always open to further financial support from benefactors, and that they hoped to eventually support a staff member dedicated to arms control and disarmament.