Luc Reychler: A Pioneer in Sustainable Peacebuilding Architecture

Luc Reychler, PhD (Harvard, 1976), is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). He was previously Director of the Centre for Peace Research and Strategic Studies (CPRS) and Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) from 2004 to 2008. He has published widely on sustainable peacebuilding architecture, planning and evaluation of violence prevention and peace-building interventions, and multilateral negotiations. His books include Patterns of Diplomatic Thinking: A Cross-national Study of Structural and Social-psychological Determinants (New York: Praeger, 1979), Le défi de la paix au Burundi (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999), Democratic Peace-building and Conflict Prevention: the Devil is in the Transition (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999), Peacebuilding: A Field Guide (Boulder, CO: Lynne Riener, 2001), and Time for Peace: The Essential Role of Time in Conflict and Peace Processes (Australia: University of Queensland Press, 2015). Since becoming Emeritus Professor in October 2010, he has dealt with ethics, good governance and conflict resolution in sports, especially Taekwondo, and he is currently working on a book concerning the role of humour in deep-rooted conflicts.Professor Arnim Langer is Director of the Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD), Chair Holder of the UNESCO Chair in Building Sustainable Peace, and Professor of International Politics at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). He is further a Research Associate at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID) at the University of Oxford and an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Perth. He was recently awarded a highly prestigious Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, which he took up in September 2017 at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. His research focuses on group behaviour and identity formation, the causes and consequences of violent conflict, the dynamics and persistence of horizontal inequalities, post-conflict economic reconstruction processes for sustainable peacebuilding and peace education in post-conflict countries, as well as national service programmes in Africa. He has conducted extensive field research and is overseeing large research projects on these topics in a range of countries, in particular Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has published extensively on issues of ethnicity, inequality and conflict, including in a range of top journals such as Political Analysis, World Development, Foreign Affairs and Social Indicators Research.