The Institute for Development and Peace (INEF) was founded in 1990 as the first institute of the Faculty of Social Sciences exclusively focusing on research and research transfer into academic and political debates.

We analyze issues in the field of peace and conflict as well as development studies and ask which actors address and govern global challenges and with what effects (global governance).

Under our current research programme “Contested Authority in Transnational Governance” we organize our work into the three research areas:

I. Global Governance for Sustainable Development

II. Human Rights and Regulation in the Global Economy

III. Social Conflicts and Resilience

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Third-party funded research projects allow us to generate basic knowledge on politically relevant issues and to collect data as part of our field research. INEF is integrated in a strong and viable international research and collaboration network. We work particularly closely with the Development and Peace Foundation (sef:) and the Centre for Global Cooperation Research (Käte Hamburger Kolleg, KHK) at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

As far as applied research and public policy consulting is concerned, the collaboration with the sef: and the Working Group on Peace and Development (FriEnt) as well as with the German Platform for Peaceful Conflict Management features quite prominently. With respect to research and graduate training, besides the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR21) of the University of Duisburg-Essen, the UAR Graduate Centre for Development Studies and the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE), both based at the Ruhr University Bochum, play a major role among our academic partners.

Our publications are the most visible results of our research. Besides books and articles published by our team members, three publication series of INEF have been established over the years, which constitute a key aspect of our work. With the working paper series "INEF Report", INEF tries to shape the academic discourse and the political debates on particular issues of development and peace. Together with the Peace and Development Foundation (sef:), INEF issues the series “Global Trends. Analysis”, which is edited by an international board of experts. In addition, INEF co-edits the annual "Peace Report" in collaboration with three other peace research institutes providing analyses of current conflicts and also giving specific recommendations to policy-makers.

In addition to our research, we try to contribute regularly to the degree programmes of the Institute for Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences. This comprises in particular teaching courses in the MA programme "International Relations and Development Policy" (MA IBEP).