The project Institution Centred Conflict Studies (ICCS) builds on the experiences and results of the preceding, VW-foundation financed, transfer project Understanding Local Conflicts, Using Development Opportunities. As a result of this project, the State University of Kabardino-Balkaria in Nalchik (KBSU) established a Master Programme on the sociology of conflict and founded a Graduate School (Graduiertenkolleg) for empirical conflict research.

In the new funding period (2015-2019) ICCS expands regarding three aspects:

(1) ICCS is expanding its teaching and research programme to Adygheya in the North Caucasus as well as to Abkhazia and Adjara in the South Caucasus.

(2) For the teaching component ICCS opens the existing master programme at Nalchik University to three additional universities in the region. In cooperation with the Centre for Conflict Studies (CCS) at University Marburg and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence (IKG) in Bielefeld, ICCS will enhance teaching and also create an option for graduation in Germany.

(3) In the field of research, ICCS uses the Graduate School at Nalchik University as anchor for PhD students and post-PhD researchers from the region to conduct methodologically sound empirical conflict research. This is achieved via an initial summer school held at Nalchik University, via a series of workshops conducted at the new partner universities, via research grants and via extended in-field backup provided by the German project management and its partners in Marburg (CCS) and Bielefeld (IKG). Both components – teaching and research – are closely interlinked and will help create an urgently needed pool of empirically informed and methodologically trained local experts on this region.

Based on the research fields tentatively identified in the ICCS project proposal and the further development specification of those promising empirical research directions we arrived at three general research lines.

1. Research line "Sub-national Governance Constellations"
2. Research line "Development and Social Order"
3. Research line "Politics of Culture and Identity"

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

HOST UNIVERSITIES