History and Annual Review
PRIF has been conducting peace and conflict research for over 50 years and can therefore look back on decades of peace policy change. The policy of détente of the 1970s and 80s faces a 21st century of polycrises and thus an increasing shift in the global order. PRIF addresses these developments through its internationalized research. Our annual reviews provide current insights into the results and developments of research and science communication today.
A Brief History of PRIF
From 1970 to the present day: Since its foundation, PRIF has pursued the approach of researching peace and its respective local, global and social conditions. Through scientific excellence, a small foundation in the South of Hesse has become a globally networked research institute. Here are the key milestones in over 50 years of peace research at PRIF.
In his inaugural speech just one year prior, Osswald had called on the institutions of higher education in Hesse to develop a program for an institute of peace and conflict research. The state government’s intention to promote peace research found most resonance with the Philipps-Universität in Marburg and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, with additional support coming from the City of Frankfurt. And so, in the summer of 1970, an 11-member-strong academic commission drafted a program detailing the tasks and organization of the planned research institute:
“The Peace Research Institute Frankfurt examines the causes, resolution and possibilities of controlling conflict. The institute’s research is not limited to the analysis of the conditions of conflict, but, on the basis of such investigation, it aims to develop innovative transformation and solution concepts, in which abating violence, increasing social fairness and political freedom can be combined with the international system and individual societies. Using the knowledge-guided concept of peace, PRIF analyses the causes of selected international conflicts, which are rooted in the social behaviour of the conflicting partners and their interaction. Such structure and process analyses aim to produce systematic and cumulative results, on the basis of which the behaviour of conflicting partners can be made transparent, explained and predicted. Consequentially, the understanding of conflicts can be extended and in a way changed, enabling a progressive, peace-promoting concept of foreign policy and international politics. The foundation helps ensure that the knowledge gained from peace and conflict research plays an effective role in the public arena and especially in political culture. PRIF’s research tasks take on different levels of approach. The main approaches are as follows:
- International system structures as universal and regional conditions for conflict (conflict potential produced by interaction structures and distribution patterns, for example the flow of information, capital and trade; analysis of the extent of interdependence, communication opportunities, technology, international organisations, international stratification).
- International politics: situation-specific conflict potential and conflict processes (armament/disarmament, economic interests, development problems, security issues, socio-historic antagonism).
- National conflict potential and the social conditions of conflict (national and cultural behaviour traditions, socio-economic systems and rule, class and group-specific interests, public opinion and mass media, socialisation).
- Foreign policy decision processes and strategies (influence from social forces and administrations, external influences, diplomacy).
All levels of approach are relevant to the creation of transformation programmes and models of conflict control. The complexity of these research subjects necessitate long-term investigation. Hessian scientists together with scientists from home and abroad and from various disciplines, primarily from the areas of political sciences (international relations), sociology, economics, social psychology, international law, education, applied mathematics and statistics work together in an interdisciplinary cooperation. This research plan makes PRIF different from other federal programmes, which, for example, look for more direct and relevant assistance in decision-making, who deliberately see peace and conflict research as just a sub-area of their mandate or who only deal with certain areas of conflict research. Internationally speaking, PRIF stands alongside other institutes in Oslo and Ann Arbor, which are likewise oriented around structural research and with whom intensive cooperation is sought.”
On the basis of this document, on 22 July 1970, the state government of Hesse resolved to establish the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, adopting its constitution on 15 September of the same year.
“There will always be conflicts in this world – social, political and economic conflicts. We must ensure that these conflicts are handled with reason and rationality and that their solutions do not restrict the freedom of people.” It was with these words that the former Prime Minister of Hesse, Albert Osswald, handed the foundation deed for PRIF over to the interim board – Prof Ernst-Otto Czempiel, Dr Hans Nicklas and Dr Dieter Senghaas – on 30 October 1970.
Since PRIF was founded at the start of the détente process between the Soviet Union and the West, its initial work mainly concentrated on research into the Cold War, armament dynamics, arms control and disarmament.
During the seventies and eighties, the research program was modified and expanded to include the North-South dimension and its interactions with Cold War dynamics. It was now time to transform the knowledge gained from basic research into practical policy advice.
The radical change in the international system at the start of the nineties meant that PRIF’s research profile had to be redefined. In an era of fundamental international, social, economic and technological change, the program adopted in 1991 concentrated on the "Theory and Practice of Cooperation – Europe’s Contribution to Peace". This also included research into global and regional developments that could influence the peace process in Europe. With this, the research focus shifted from the causes of war to an analysis and formulation of the conditions for establishing peace as a lasting, non-violent option for interstate and domestic conflicts.
In 2000, PRIF entered the fourth phase of its development. Based on the research program, "Antinomies of Democratic Peace", the task turned to examining the seemingly self-evident notion that democracies are inevitably peaceful and, as such, that any promising peace strategy should pursue democratization based on the Western model. This entails conducting in-depth analyses of the ability of democratic states to maintain peace along with the associated dangers, an undertaking that stands to uncover new options for negotiating peace both domestically and externally and is in line with the objective of peace research to critically self-reflect on the thoughts and actions of democracies.
With the conclusion of the former research program “Just Peace Governance” in 2017, PRIF commenced work on a new program titled “Peace and Coercion”. Within this program, PRIF analyzes the ambivalent tensions that exist between peace and coercion. It adresses how the practice of coercion affects the creation, preservation and endangerment of peace.
With the research program “Antinomies of Democratic Peace”, PRIF underwent an evaluation process for inclusion into the Leibniz Association. At the end of 2004, the evaluation commission from the German Council of Science and Humanities assessed PRIF’s work on the basis of written documentation and a number of presentations. In spring 2005, the commission approved PRIF and recommended its inclusion into the association. On 19 November 2007, the “Bund-Länder-Kommission” (commission of federal and state representatives) determined that PRIF would be included in the Leibniz Association as of from 1 January 2009.
PRIF’s first evaluation as a Leibniz institute was carried out in December 2012, the results of which were released the following June. The review board presented an excellent evaluation that fully praised and supported the direction that the institute had taken since its admission into the Leibniz Association. The decision to maintain joint funding for PRIF followed in the autumn.
In 2020, the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) turned 50. A ceremony hosted by the City of Frankfurt to mark 51 years of PRIF rounded off the anniversary period on November 24, 2021. Following a ceremonial address by Volker Bouffier, Minister President of the State of Hesse, PRIF Director Nicole Deitelhoff and Omid Nouripour, Member of the German Bundestag, discussed current peace policy challenges in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche. The anniversary and ceremony were held under the motto “Peace begins with us.”
Under this anniversary title, Nicole Deitelhoff reaffirmed the glocal approach to peace that still characterizes PRIF today:
“When talking about peace, we usually think about ending armed wars or conflicts, or to prevent them. We remember the catastrophe of two World Wars and the “Never Again” of the United Nations in response to the breach of civilization that was the Shoa. We also think of current military conflicts in Ukraine, Yemen, Iraq, Southern Sudan or Syria.
While all these horrors shape how we perceive the imperative of peace, they sometimes tend to make us overlook the fact that peace has to be established not only globally, in the Far East, in the Global South, between hostile states or alliances, but also locally. Peace begins with us – in our families, with our neighbours, in our cities, in our society. Only a society that lives in peace with one another can foster peace in the outside world.
And yet, peace in our communities is always linked to peace on a global scale.”
The recording of the event is available via PRIF’s YouTube channel.
Internationally, we have been known for some time under our English name Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, or PRIF for short. Since 2023, we also carry the name PRIF – Leibniz-Institut für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung in German, thus reflecting the ongoing internationalization of the institute.
Our scientists travel to many regions of the world to research conflicts and conditions for peace – and do so together with local actors. PRIF is also itself a place that facilitates exchange with international researchers and experts. Internationally, we have therefore long been known as PRIF. Since 2009, we are a member of the Leibniz Association. The Leibniz Association stands for disciplinary diversity and for making the results of basic research usable for society. This is also particularly important to us. Our identity as a Leibniz Institute is therefore naturally reflected in our logo and name. To study and understand peace worldwide, we bring together, under one roof, different positions and research perspectives. And we argue about those sometimes, too. This diversity of voices characterizes our institute – and this is also represented in our new logo.
The logo and corporate design of PRIF were developed by Anja Feix and Miguel Pardo (grübelfabrik e.K.).