Professor Gearoid Millar spoke at Conciliation Resources on 27 May 2026. Professor Millar took part in an informal discussion with Katariina Leinonen, on the subject of 'Peace work amid the Polycrisis: Reorienting the field for the challenges of tomorrow'.
The talk addressed the question, How do we build peace in a world in crisis? Those working for peace know that the paradigms, approaches, and practices deployed within the field have always evolved in response to new challenges. The challenges of the post-9/11 world were different than those in the immediate post-Cold War years, for example, and peace work responded accordingly. But recently the pace of change and the interconnected complexity of the challenges have caught the field off guard.
Professor Gearoid Millar shared insights from a study conducted over the last eight years involving 99 interviews with leading academics and international peacebuliding practitioners. Overall, the study revealed a worrying lack of clarity regarding what the peacebuilding field needs to do or become to face the rapidly evolving challenges to peace. In a time of escalating crises, we must therefore ask: How can the field best respond to the challenges we now face?