Social Sciences

This university research institute focuses on applied basic research at the intersection between development and peace. The main focus of work at INEF, which celebrated 20 years of existence in 2010, is on globalisation processes and how they are shaped politically. Analysis of violent conflicts, strategies for non-violent conflict resolution and questions of international development and human rights policy are at the forefront of interest, with a focus on developing societies and fragile states. INEF regularly transfers the findings of its research to political practice through its consulting work and is represented at many international conferences. In 2010, INEF was also able to intensify its international contacts through a DAAD-funded academic exchange with the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (ACPACS) at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.
Over the past few years, INEF has been able to expand and deepen its applied basic research and its consulting work in some major third-party funded projects. Two “lighthouse” research projects awarded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) made no small contribution to this achievement and deal with “Human Rights, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainable Development” and “Instruments and Procedures of German Development Cooperation in Post-Conflict Countries”. A long-term focus of INEF research into participation and the fight against poverty picked up on a Volkswagen Foundation-funded project, part of which involved field research in the Central East Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan and Tadzhikistan. The end of 2009 saw the conclusion of a project which had been funded for three years by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (Institute of Foreign Cultural Relations, ifa) dealing with land conflicts in Somaliland. The final phase of the project concentrated on urban space and the role of women. The meaning of diaspora for conflict and development processes in home countries was investigated in an EU-funded project in a European network with the participation of INEF, which was responsible for a case study of Berlin.