The Initiative for Peacebuilding
The Initiative for Peacebuilding brings together multidisciplinary research, engagement, and education to advance peacebuilding and conflict prevention in the Indo-Pacific region.
Sustainable peace is one of the essential conditions for global security and wellbeing. One way that peace is pursued is through the prevention and transformation of violent conflicts, and the conditions that give rise to these conflicts. Another is through supporting the attitudes, institutions and structures that can sustain peaceful societies.
With deep regional expertise and capabilities which bridge research and practice, the Initiative for Peacebuilding contributes to peacebuilding and conflict prevention by:
- researching peacebuilding in innovative and regionally grounded programs
- engaging with peacebuilding practice and policy from the standpoint of a university-based initiative
- educating the current and next generation of peacebuilding practitioners and researchers
Peacebuilding Research Programs
Strengthening Diplomacy and Conflict Prevention
This research program focuses on the importance of strengthening diplomacy and aid as critical to peace and security. Even before the pandemic, peacebuilding was under-resourced, a situation which was worsened by severe underfunding of diplomacy, aid, and development. With priorities shifting to COVID-19 responses, local peacebuilders fear further reductions in financial support and attention from international, government and non-government donors. Engaging with researchers from across the humanities and social sciences enables a dynamic exploration of case studies from across the region, where partnerships already exist. Example projects relate to: the current efforts to re-vision diplomatic renewal in foreign policy in Australia; the importance of dialogue and relationship-building in relation to Northeast Asia; and professional development modules that can support enhanced policy and practice in conflict prevention.
Indo-Pacific Peacebuilding Practice Innovations
This research program focuses on innovations in peacebuilding and conflict prevention among key Indo-Pacific case studies (such as Myanmar, Bougainville, and Solomon Islands). The program seeks to examine how peacebuilding organisations, states, and non-state actors are working to adapt their efforts to today’s complex challenges. It provides opportunities for reflection and the strategic re-visioning of peacebuilding efforts, while learning from, sharing, and supporting new opportunities to advance peace. An example project involves collaboration with key First Nation mediators in Australia, and Southeast Asian and Pacific peacebuilding organisations, to examine what is working in relation to conflict transformation efforts. This is achieved through the collaborative investigation of partner experiences in Myanmar, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, and Central and Northern Australia.
Keep up to date with our latest news and events
Current news and events
Peacebuilding Perspectives Conversation Series
Past Events
Peacebuilding Perspectives Conversation Series: peacebuilding in South Sudan
with David Nyuol Vincent
September 2024
Peacebuilding Perspectives Conversation Series: Iranian women peacebuilders and intergenerational peace leadership
with Shadi Rouhshahbaz
August 2024
Myanmar's Future
with Her Excellency Daw Zin Mar Aung
June 2024
Peacebuilding Perspectives Conversation Series: revitalisation and institutionalisation of Pancasila Education
with Yayah Khisbiyah
June 2024
Peacebuilding Perspectives Conversation Series: backlash against and resistance to feminist peacebuilding
with Simone Wisotzki
April 2024
Peacebuilding Perspectives Conversation Series: freedom dreaming, storytelling and reconciliation
with André de Quadros
March 2024
Pursuing conflict transformation and peace in Myanmar
February 2024
Core staff
Professor John Langmore AM
Professor John Langmore initiated the Initiative for Peacebuilding concept. Between 1963 and 1976 he worked in Papua New Guinea as a public servant and academic where he led the preparation of the first national plan. Between 1976 and 1984 he was an economic advisor to the Australian Labor Party and proposed the negotiation of the Accord. In 1984 he was elected as the Member for Fraser in the House of Representatives and was re-elected four times.
One of his achievements there was chairing the committee which planned the adoption of the first comprehensive committee system for the House of Representatives.
Dr Tania Miletic
For the past 20 years Dr Tania Miletic has been engaged in policy-oriented research, peacebuilding practice, teaching post-graduate subjects in peace and conflict studies, and supporting actors engaged in peace processes in the Asia-Pacific region.
Tania is a Faculty member on the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies Applied Conflict Transformation Studies PhD program and a former consultant to CPCS from 2006-2012. She has collaborated with Chinese academics in mainland China for over a decade in research and teaching on contemporary conflicts within China.
Dr Jasmine Westendorf
Jasmine's research focuses on peace and humanitarian processes, particularly examining how the international community supports societies as they respond to conflict and crisis. She is interested in the negotiation of power during these processes, the role of non-state actors and women, and how international actors’ assumptions and behaviours affect their capacity and credibility in the countries where they work.
Her current major project, funded by the Australian Research Council, focuses on sexual exploitation and abuse in peace and humanitarian operations; her past work has looked at the challenges to effective international involvement and inclusivity in peace processes.
Dr Niamatullah Ibrahimi
Dr. Niamatullah Ibrahimi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Initiative for Peacebuilding. He completed his PhD at The Australian National University in 2018 where his doctoral thesis examined the dynamics of contentious politics in the context of international intervention and statebulding in Afghanistan from 2001.
His research interests include terrorism and political violence, contentious politics, nationalism and ethnic politics, and post-conflict governance and security dynamics.
Dr Mujib Abid
Dr Mujib Abid is an Afghan-Australian scholar of modern Afghan history, peace studies and political theory. Mujib’s work foregrounds critical traditions that self-locate in the Global South, including postcolonial and decolonial approaches, as well as other traditional and Islamic knowledge perspectives.
Mujib’s PhD thesis interrogated Afghan encounters with colonial modernity, examining modernist power and politics of dissent in Afghanistan. The work is also an attempt at theorising embodied and representational agency against coloniality from the geohistorical location of Afghanistan.
Professor Joseph Lo Bianco
Professor Joseph (Joe) Lo Bianco is professor emeritus in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. He is a specialist in bilingual education, literacy studies, and conflict mitigation with four decades of work in peacebuilding efforts in various South and Southeast Asian settings, especially Sri Lank, Myanmar, South Thailand and Malaysia. Prof Lo Bianco is series editor of Springer Language Policy books and has published over 40 books and major reports and more than 150 academic papers.
Joe leads the Initiative for Peacebuilding’s research on Peacebuilding and Language, focusing on issues of justice, communication and voice.
Dr Gillian Howell
Dr Gillian Howell is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. Her award-winning research and community-engaged creative practice advance our understanding of the cultural, social, and educational contributions of music-making in places impacted by war and colonial violence. Focused on processes of peacebuilding, dialogue, and the restoration of cultural practices, her highly original research makes theoretical and empirical contributions to the scholarly fields of community music, applied ethnomusicology, peace and conflict studies, and development studies.
Ms Tess Smurthwaite
Tess Smurthwaite is a Research Development Officer in the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Arts, where she works across the Initiative for Peacebuilding and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures.
Tess has qualifications in art history and arts and cultural management, and has previously worked for Melbourne University Publishing, the Mietta Song Competition and the Abbotsford Convent Foundation. She was Fiction Editor and Deputy Editor of Australian literary journal Meanjin from 2016-2024. Tess has edited several Australian novels and short story collections in a freelance capacity, and has worked as a tutor for students of publishing and editing.
Ms Denise Nichols OAM
Denise Nichols has worked in international development, human rights, emergency response and disaster preparedness for over three decades.
She is a humanitarian specialist and practitioner with experience in refugee and post conflict environments in Asia and the Pacific especially in, Thailand, Myanmar, and Solomon Islands. She was deployed to Kosovo in the aftermath of the conflict working on peace building and recovery with women and people with disability. Denise previously worked with Oxfam Australia and other non-government international development organisations as well as AusAID (now DFAT) as an emergency manager, trainer, and as a disaster management advisor.
Mr Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai
Mr Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai is the former Chief Peace Negotiator of the Islamic Republic.
Prior to this role he served as Chief of NDS, Acting Minister of Defense, Head of the Joint Secretariat of High Peace Council, deputy to the Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration Commission DDR). In addition, he was responsible for the disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) and served as Minister of Telecommunication and initiated the public-private partnership. Before this, he served as the head of an NGO and also as one of the first members of the Human Rights Commission.
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- Associate Professor Jennifer Balint, Dean, Faculty of Arts
- Professor Belinda Hewitt, Head of School, SSPS
- Professor Erika Feller, Professorial Fellow, Melbourne School of Government
- Dr Emma Leslie AM, Executive Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (Cambodia)
- Professor Adrian Little, Pro Vice Chancellor (International) and Professor of Political Theory
- John McCarthy AO, former senior Australian diplomat, analyst, and writer
- Associate Professor Tilman Ruff AO, Nossal Institute for Global Health
- Father Daniel Madigan SJ, Newman College, The University of Melbourne
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From the School of Social and Political Sciences:
- Professor Derek McDougall, Professorial Fellow, SSPS
- Dr Carla Winston, Lecturer in International Relations, SSPS
- Dr Rachael Diprose, Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Studies, SSPS
- Dr Anne Decobert, Lecturer in Development Studies, School of SSPS
- Dr Lesley Pruitt, Senior Lecturer in Development Studies, SSPS
- Dr Nerkez Opacin, Teaching Associate, SSPS
- Professor Maria Rost Rublee, International Relations, SSPS
From the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning:
- Ika Trijsburg, Research Fellow in City Diplomacy
From the School of Languages and Linguistics:
- Dr Ali Albakaa, Honorary Fellow
Honorary Fellow in the School of Languages and Linguistics
From outside the University of Melbourne:
- Dr Siad Darwish, Environmental Peacebuilding and Gender Advisor
- Dr Dolly Kikon, Collaborator on Food Systems, Conflict and Peacebuilding
- Professor Sanjay Barbora, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
- Dr Anouk Ride, Independent Researcher, Solomon Islands
- Mr Soth Plai Ngarm, Research Affiliate
- Dr Gabrielle Grant, Research Affiliate
- Dr Michael Main, Research Affiliate, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University
- Dr Dan Evans, Research Affiliate, Senior Policy Analyst at the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue
- Atikah Nuraini, Research Affiliate, Pannasastra University
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- Sophia Htwe, whose research aims to develop a better understanding of the role of Myanmar’s civil society organisations in peacebuilding in the Rohingya conflict
- David Lozada is researching the social conflicts within and between social actors who mobilised against president Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’
- Syed Ali Akash, whose central research question examines the complementarity and incongruity between state-led and locally-driven approaches to peacebuilding
Conflict Transformation in Afghanistan
More than four decades of violent conflicts and foreign interventions have profoundly disrupted the politics and society in Afghanistan. The Taliban's forceful takeover of the country in 2021 has led to a collapse of peace process and an intersecting political, human rights, and humanitarian crises, with long-term implications for the future of peace and stability in the country and the region. The Initiative for Peacebuilding is undertaking research to examine historical peace processes and the challenges and prospects for conflict transformation towards inclusive and sustainable peace in the country.
Bougainville Senior Leadership Professional Development Programme 2023-2024
The BSLPDP is an Australian government programme implemented by the University of Melbourne Initiative for Peacebuilding with financial support from the New Zealand Government. The programme supports the professional development needs of senior government officials (President, Ministers and Secretaries) from Bougainville and the Government of Papua New Guinea (GoPNG).
Peacebuilding Perspectives Conversation Series
The Initiative for Peacebuilding launched a Conversation Series in 2021 to hold space for deeper listening to Australian-based peacebuilders as well as discussion of important dimensions of their peacebuilding work. Hosted by Dr Tania Miletic, these conversations continue in 2024 with a fascinating and diverse range of peacebuilders from Australia and the world.
Preparations for the UN Summit of the Future
In September 2024 Australia participated in the United Nations Summit of the Future. In partnership with other collaborators, the Initiative for Peacebuilding prepared a series of briefing papers to stimulate discussion of key issues on the agenda for the Summit with interested Australians and community organisations.
Myanmar Conflict Transformation
Since 2021 the Initiative for Peacebuilding has led research and engagement activities concerning conflict transformation in Myanmar. In collaboration with the Australia Myanmar Institute in February 2024, the Initiative for Peacebuilding convened a major symposium in on pursuing conflict transformation and peace in Myanmar post-military coup. This hybrid symposium brought together Myanmar and Australian government leaders, researchers and practitioners to reflect on and further prospects for conflict transformation in Myanmar through presentations, panel discussion and participatory engagement.
Policy Submissions and Policy Brief Series
Since 2017 Dr Tania Miletic and Professor John Langmore have contributed to and published numerous policy briefs about peacebuilding which have been submitted to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In 2023 the Initiative made a submission to DFAT’s New International Development Policy and delivered a range of briefings to high level government actors and parliamentarians in partnership with the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. In 2024, the Initiative published a series of briefing papers in preparation for the UN Summit of the Future.
Visiting Scholars Program
The Initiative was delighted to host Dr Jeremy Simons as a visiting scholar in 2024. Jeremy is a senior research fellow at the Te Ngāpara Centre for Restorative Practice (Victoria University Wellington) with over 20 years of experience as an educator, organiser, and community-oriented researcher. His current scholarship and research support restorative initiatives in education, justice sectors, and community contexts. Having been born and raised in the Philippines he is curious about how culture interacts with restorative justice, peacebuilding, and community development.
South Sudanese Peace Leadership Program
Hosted by the Initiative for Peacebuilding, this three-day peace leadership program is tailored to the critical role Australian South Sudanese community leaders and peacebuilders have in supporting longer-term peace, both within their communities in Australia and for political development and social healing in South Sudan.
Creative Peace Collaboratory
The Creative Peace Collaboratory is a research, engagement, and translation initiative based in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne. It is led by Dr Gillian Howell as part of her Melbourne Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2023–2026, exploring music and other arts practices as resources for peacebuilding and peace-seeking.
Peace Education Project
Professor Joseph Lo Bianco is developing an event that focuses on peace education, drawing together cases and experiences internationally to emphasise the importance of education for peacebuilding.
Publications
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Matilda Byrne, 2024, Autonomous Weapons Must be Controlled Urgently (An Issues Brief in Preparation for the UN Summit of the Future 2024).
John Langmore AM, Dr Tania Miletic and Dr David Richardson, 2024, Strengthening Australian Diplomacy (An Issues Brief in Preparation for the UN Summit of the Future 2024).
John Langmore AM and Ramesh Thakur, 2024, Transform or Die: the Case for Reforming the UN Security Council (An Issues Brief in Preparation for the UN Summit of the Future 2024).
Russell Rollason AM, Adrian Morrice, Simon Richards and Jacob Berah, 2024, Rising to the Challenge: how Australia can Help Transform the UN Peacebuilding Commission (An Issues Brief in Preparation for the UN Summit of the Future 2024).
Gem Romuld, Tilman Ruff AO and Melissa Parke, 2024, Luck Is Not a Strategy: It's Time to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons (An Issues Brief in Preparation for the UN Summit of the Future 2024).
Erika Feller AO FAIIA, 2024, Impunity, Accountability and Respect for Human Rights and the Rule of Law (An Issues Brief in Preparation for the UN Summit of the Future 2024). The Australia Peacebuilding Network, 2024, Peacebuilding in Australian Foreign Policy: a Summary of Views and Conclusions from the Australia Peacebuilding Network Roundtable.
John Langmore, Tania Miletic, Aran Martin, and Bob Breen, 2020, Security Through Sustainable Peace: Australian International Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding, Melbourne School of Government and School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
John Langmore, Tania Miletic, Aran Martin, and Nathan Shea, 2017, State Support for Peace Processes: A Multi-Country Review, Published by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
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Miletic, Tania, and Abid, Mujib, 2024, 'The Shrine of Remembrance Turns 90: Time to Mourn, not Glorify War, and to Seed Hope for the Living', Australian Outlook.
Langmore, John, 2024, 'Is the UN's Pact for the Future a Breakdown or a Breakthrough?', Pursuit.
Langmore, John, 2024, 'The Underfunding of Australian Diplomacy Continues', Australian Outlook.
Langmore, John, 2023, 'A Breakthrough for Justice and Peace', Pursuit.
Langmore, John 2022, 'Peacebuilding – It’s Time to End Australia’s Neglect', Australian Outlook. Miletic, Tania and Anouk Ride, 2022, 'Tensions are high between China and Australia over Solomon Islands, but it’s in everyone’s interests to simmer down', The Guardian.
Ride, Anouk and Tania Miletic, 2022, 'Stepping carefully amid conflict in the Pacific', Pursuit. Feller, Erika, 2022, 'Social Justice – How and for Whom?', Australian Outlook.
Barbora, Sanjay, 2022, 'AUKUS an unwelcome guest at the table of nuclear disarmament', Pearls and Irritations, 16 January 2022.
McDougall, Derek, 2022, An Authoritarian Turn in the United States: Implications for Australia? Australian Outlook (Australian Institute of International Affairs), 28 January 2022, An Authoritarian Turn in the United States: Implications for Australia? - AIIA - Australian Institute of International Affairs.
John Langmore and Tania Miletic, 2021, Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Inquiry into Funding for Public Research into Foreign Policy Issues, March.
Tania Miletic and John Langmore, 2020, ‘Australian Threadbare Diplomacy in Conflict,’ Australian Outlook, 26 November.
Miletic, Tania. 2018, Diaspora and Peacebuilding. Prepared for Diaspora Learning Network and Diaspora Action Australia. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Miletic, Tania. 2018, Concept Note: Diaspora Peacebuilding and Reconciliation. Prepared for Diaspora Learning Network’s Seminar #1, DAA and DFAT.
Miletic, Tania. 2016, ‘Cambodia’s peace 25 years on’, Australian Outlook, Australian Institute of International Affairs, 26 October.
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McDougall, Derek 2021. International Relations, in Understanding Contemporary Asia Pacific, 2nd ed. Katherine Palmer Kaup, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, Colorado, pp. 177–234.
McDougall, Derek 2021. Australia and the South Pacific Islands in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, in Humanitarianism in Asia-Pacific: Engaging the Debate in Policy and Practice, eds Alistair Cook and Lina Gong, Springer Briefs in Political Science, Springer Nature, Singapore, pp. 41–45.
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Gegeo, David; Pendeverana, Lincy; Paia, Mary Tahu; Maebuta, Jack; Ride, Anouk and Aqorau, Transform, 2025, 'Environmental Peacebuilding, Indigenous Epistemologies and Experience: Learning From Ruptures and Resilience in Solomon Islands', Asia Pacific Viewpoint.
Parkes, Nicola and Pruitt Wolf, Lesley, 2024, 'Youth Choreographing Peace: Dance in and Beyond the Refugee Camp', Journal of Peacebuilding & Development.
Darwish, Siad and Tuenpakdee, Naruemol, 2023, 'The State of Civic Peacebuilding in South and Southeast Asia', The Asia Foundation.
Feller, Erika and Langmore, John, 2022. 'Implications of the UN Common Agenda for Australia: Renewing Multilateralism', Australian Journal of International Affairs 77 (1), 2022, pp 1–11.
McDougall, Derek, 2021. 'Australia’s humanitarian response to disasters in the South Pacific. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics', Online First, 1–19. McDougall, Derek, 2021. 'Concerns for the neighbours (and some others): international involvement in the conflicts in the Southern Philippines and West Papua' Small Wars and Insurgencies, First Published 26 July.
Chauvel, Richard & McDougall, Derek, 2021, ‘Introduction: Maritime Southeast Asia’s encounter with Westphalianism’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, pp. 1–12.
McDougall, Derek (2021), 'Review of "The frontlines of peace: an insider’s guide to changing the world"', Peacebuilding, DOI: 10.1080/21647259.2021.1999167.
Martin, A., Nathan S., and J. Langmore, 2017, ‘International mediation and Australian Foreign Policy: building institutional capacity to respond to overseas conflict’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 71 (1), 2017, 88–104.
Langmore, John and Jeremy Farrall, 2016, ‘Can Elected Members Make a Difference in the UN Security Council? Australia’s Experience in 2013-2014’, Global Governance, 22, 1, Jan–March, pp 59–77.
Langmore, John and Ramesh Thakur, 2016, ‘The Elected and Neglected Security Council Members’, The Washington Quarterly, 39:2,99-114, DOI: 10.1080/0163660X.2016.1204412.
Langmore, John, 2013, ‘Australia’s Campaign for Security Council Membership’, 2013, Australian Journal of Political Science, March, Vol. 48, No. 1, pp 101–111.
Langmore, John and Shaun Fitzgerald, 2012, ‘Strengthening Global Economic Governance’, in Kate Macdonald, Shelley Marshall and Sanjay Pinto (Eds.), New Visions for Market Governance: Crisis and Renewal, Routledge, New York, pp 94–106.
McLachlan-Bent, Ashley and John Langmore, 2011, ‘A Crime against Humanity? Implications and Prospects of the Responsibility to Protect in the Wake of Cyclone Nargis’, Global Responsibility to Protect, Vol 3, No. 1, pp 37–60.
Langmore, John and Jan Egeland, 2011, ‘Learning from Norway: Independent Middle-Power Foreign Policy’, Griffith Review 32, May, pp 164–179.
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McDougall, Derek and Chauvel Richard (guest editors). 2021 Small Wars & Insurgencies, 32, no. 6.
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Ibrahimi, Niamatullah and Stanekzai, Masoom, 2025, 'The risks and rewards of engaging with Afghanistan's Taliban government', Ear to Asia podcast, Melbourne Asia Review.
Contacts
General enquiries
E: peace-team@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Tania Miletic
Assistant Director, Initiative for Peacebuilding
T: +61 437 272 287 E: tmiletic@unimelb.edu.au
Tess Smurthwaite
Coordinator, Initiative for Peacebuilding
E: smurthwaite.t@unimelb.edu.au
Professor John Langmore
Chair of the Advisory Board, Initiative for Peacebuilding
T: +61 419 897 489 E: langmore@unimelb.edu.au
Mailing list
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The Initiative for Peacebuilding brings together multidisciplinary research, engagement, and education to advance peacebuilding and conflict prevention in the Indo-Pacific region.
Sustainable peace is one of the essential conditions for global security and wellbeing. One way that peace is pursued is through the prevention and transformation of violent conflicts, and the conditions that give rise to these conflicts. Another is through supporting the attitudes, institutions and structures that can sustain peaceful societies.
With deep regional expertise and capabilities which bridge research and practice, the Initiative for Peacebuilding contributes to peacebuilding and conflict prevention by:
- researching peacebuilding in innovative and regionally grounded programs
- engaging with peacebuilding practice and policy from the standpoint of a university-based initiative
- educating the current and next generation of peacebuilding practitioners and researchers
If you are interested in supporting the Initiative, please refer to our downloadable brochure. Funds donated via the link below go directly toward supporting the activities of the Initiative.