Mission
Who Are We?
Our primary philanthropic aim is to support excellence and innovation in conflict studies. We seek to fund projects that create effective and pragmatic alternatives for transforming violent political conflict throughout the world. Above all, we emphasise applied approaches with practical value.
We focus on research with these core values:
- Contributes to and improves best practice in the field in new and creative ways
- Produces relevant policy advice for decision makers, opinion formers and policy makers
- Explores and implements concrete practices for studying and transforming violent political conflict
- Examines key concepts, issues, themes and current debates in conflict studies in ways that enhance their practical and theoretical worth
All our grant-making activities are designed to bring research and practice together in new and compelling ways. In particular, we wish to support projects that go beyond the present discourses of conflict studies. We highly value research that can effectively influence how practitioners both think about and do their work. At the same time, it is equally important for us to fund practice-oriented projects that have a meaningful impact on the research agendas of conflict studies. Ultimately, we believe that our combined emphasis on research and practice guarantees both the integrity and worth of the projects we fund.
TopCombined Strength
Our own commitment to these key values is best exemplified in the long-term support we provide to our two flagship projects: Berghof Conflict Research and Berghof Peace Support. Together, both organisations represent a rare combination of expertise and experience built up over more than 15 years. This dynamic synergy between research and practice has earned the Berghof name an international reputation for excellence in the field of conflict studies.
At the Foundation, we are privileged to have such a unique set of institutional relations available to us. Working in close cooperation with both organisations, we utilise these two valuable assets to determine our overall funding agenda. We believe this gives our philanthropic activities a distinctive and original character. It also allows us to develop relevant, state-of-the-art funding policy in conflict studies.
TopWhy Conflict Studies?
Conflict is an inevitable fact of human experience. However overwhelming its past and present realities, we strongly believe that it is possible—indeed more necessary now than ever—to create effective and lasting alternatives to violent political conflict. If we cannot put into practice peaceful and just methods for addressing conflict, the collective survival of humanity remains at risk.
The endless cost of political violence bears this out. Human lives are lost or permanently damaged. Financial, environmental and cultural resources are squandered or entirely wasted. Whole generations, and more, carry with them the physical, emotional and economic scars of violence. Hatred and prejudice thrive. Poverty grows. Despair and cynicism take root. Hope and belief in the possibility of a more peaceful and just human reality diminishes or disappears.
TopFostering Excellence
By fostering a tradition of excellence in conflict studies, we hope to make a constructive contribution toward overcoming these deadly and destructive experiences. For us, nonviolent means of addressing conflict offer the most realistic and economically viable way forward for the future of humanity. It is for this reason that we devote our philanthropic attention to this area.
In our view, this the central task of conflict studies: to devise nonviolent methods and strategies that can successfully transform violent political conflict in enduring ways. Our perspective on this difficult and complex challenge is thoroughly pragmatic. We emphasise the value of empirically-based research that is carefully focused on the everyday experiences of violent political conflict. We support rigorous analytic approaches designed to produce practical methods for intervention. We encourage the formulation of creative and imaginative, but always realistic, responses to addressing and transforming the problem of political violence.
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