Welcome to the launch of the new research project 'Societies at Risk' on 20 May 2022

Date and time: Friday 20 May 2022 at 15:30-17:00 CEST

Venue: Lecture Hall X at Uppsala University Main Building  (Biskopsgatan 3, 753 10 Uppsala), and virtually over Zoom

Event details: The event will open with a keynote address delivered by Andrew Harper, Special Advisor for Climate Action to the High Commissioner for Refugees. We will invite researchers from the new project to a panel discussion and Q&A on the upcoming work, the current research on impacts of armed conflict, the link to the Violence Early-Warning System (ViEWS), and how findings from the project will help inform high-stakes decision-making and anticipatory action. The event will be moderated by Branka Panic, AI for Peace Founder and NYU CIC Fellow.

The event is open to the public and free of charge.

Detailed program

How to register:

• Sign up for in-person attendance in Lecture Hall X, Uppsala University Main Building,  (limited to 200 people)
• Sign up for virtual attendance

We appreciate your RSVP by May 19th 2022 and hope you can join us for this special event!

About the speakers:

• Mr. Andrew Harper (keynote speaker)
  Andrew Harper is the Special Advisor for Climate Action to the High Commissioner for Refugees. He is responsible for providing strategic guidance, oversight and expertise to shape UNHCR's response to the climate emergency. Prior to his current tasks, he headed the Innovation Service and was responsible for leading and coordinating the international response to the Syrian Crisis in Jordan. Andrew has over 30 years of experience working with people forcibly displaced by conflicts and disasters in various field locations and HQ, with UNHCR, OCHA and the Australian Embassy.
   
• Prof. Håvard Hegre (panelist)
  Håvard Hegre is Dag Hammarskjöld Professor in Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University and Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. He has nearly 30 years’ experience from peace and conflict research, political science, computer science, and statistics, with a particular focus on the relationships between democracy, development, and armed conflict, as well as on forecasting of political events. Hegre is currently developing an early-warning system for political violence (ViEWS), and starting a new research programme on the effect of armed conflict on human development. He is also on the editorial board or associate editor of several journals.
   
• Dr. Paola Vesco (panelist)
  Paola Vesco has a PhD in Science and Management of Climate Change from Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy (2020) and is currently a researcher at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. She has expertise in the construction of climatic indicators using real-time and seasonal forecasting weather data, and good knowledge of the literature on climate variability and conflict, with a special focus on vulnerabilities related to agriculture and natural resources. For her post-doc, Vesco concentrated on conflict forecasting, including how information on climate change impacts could improve conflict predictions. She has extensive experience in data analysis and of geo-referenced data in particular, is familiar with machine-learning (ML) approaches and is particularly interested in ML applications for theory assessment and development.
   
• Prof. Hannes Mueller (panelist)
  Hannes Mueller is a tenured researcher at the Institute for Economic Analysis and an Associate Research Professor and Program Director for the Data Science for Decision Making M.Sc. at the Barcelona School of Economics. His fields of interest are machine learning, political economy, development economics, conflict studies, and industrial organization. Most recently, he has analyzed how political institutions can make societies more robust, the channels through which violence affects the economy, and how conflict can be predicted using millions of newspaper articles. Professor Mueller’s work has been published in leading journals in economics and political science such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Economic Review, the American Political Science Review, the journal of the European Economic Association, and the American Journal of Economics: Macro. He has also produced research reports for governments, NGOs, the IMF, the World Bank, and the UN.
   
• Prof. Johan von Schreeb (panelist)
  Johan von Schreeb MD PhD is a general surgeon and professor in global disaster medicine. He has for the last 30 years worked as clinician and coordinator in disasters worldwide, most recently in Ukraine for WHO. His research aims to improve health care and public health response to both conflict and natural disasters. He leads the newly established center for health crises at Karolinska Institutet, a WHO collaborating centre that offers expertise, conduct research and trainings within different aspects of health effects and response to disasters worldwide.
   
• Prof. Jonathan Hall (panelist)
  Jonathan Hall is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden. He received his PhD in 2013 and since 2016 has served as the head of the Uppsala Peace Lab – a program on experimental peace and conflict research. The Lab conducts continuous research in challenging environments such as in post-conflict settings and refugee communities. Hall’s expertise lies in understanding the impact of traumatic experiences on social cooperation and the psychological processes involved in communities affected by conflict. His research has appeared in leading journals such as Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and Social Psychological and Personality Science.
   
• Ms. Branka Panic (moderator)
  Branka Panic is a political scientist, expert in international security, international development policy, and peacebuilding, currently focusing on researching the utilization of data-driven approaches to peacebuilding and prevention as a CIC Non-Resident Fellow. Branka is the Founder and Executive Director of AI for Peace, a nonprofit ensuring artificial intelligence benefits peace, security, and sustainable development. She is a co-founder and Board Member of the Center for Exponential Technologies, and a member of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. Branka holds a M.A. in International Development Policy from Duke University, Sanford School of Public Policy, and a M.A. in International Security from the University of Belgrade. She also studied International Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of North Carolina. Branka is a Rotary Peace Fellow Alumna, Paul Harris Fellow, and ambassador at the Institute for Economics and Peace.

Questions? Please contact angelica.l.mcgowan@pcr.uu.se.