FrontPage    Individuals

 Short CV

Professor  Kevin P Clements.

Professor. Clements is the   Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Foundation Director of  the National  Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago, Dunedin New Zealand.

He comes to this position from being Professor and Foundation Director of  the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland , in Brisbane Australia.  Earlier he was Secretary General of International Alert   from January 1999 to September 2003. International Alert is one of the world’s largest NGOs  working on conflict transformation. It   pioneered innovative policy and practical approaches to conflict prevention  and transformation in Africa ,Eurasia and Asia . It has also made a major contribution to the mainstreaming of conflict prevention within European Foreign and Development Ministries, the  EU and a variety of  UN institutions. During his time there he was on the Board of the European Centre for Conflict Prevention and past President of the European Peace Building Liaison Office in Brussels.

Prior to becoming Secretary General of International Alert  Kevin  was  the Vernon and Minnie Lynch Chair of Conflict Resolution at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University Fairfax Virginia USA 1994-2000 and   Director of the Institute from 1994-1999.

His career has been a combination of academic analysis and practice in the areas of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He was formerly Director of the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva and Head of the Peace Research Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra . Prior to this he was Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Co-ordinator of Peace Studies at Canterbury University, Christchurch New Zealand  and  earlier a  Lecturer in Sociology at   Hong Kong University . He took up this position from  a Post Doctoral Fellowship  at Oxford  University where he worked on development issues. 

He has been an  advisor to the  New Zealand, Australian , British , Swedish and Dutch governments on conflict prevention , peace, defence and security issues. He was, a member  of the New Zealand Government’s Defence Committee of Enquiry  in 1985.

He was elected Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association in June 2008. He was President of   (IPRA) from 1994-1998, President of the IPRA Foundation from 1995-2000 and Secretary General  of the Asia Pacific Peace Research Association. He is on the Editorial Boards of Global  Change, Peace and Security, Peace Review; The Australasian Journal of Human Security; The Journal of Development and Peacebuilding; Social Alternatives; Peace and Policy.

Professor  Clements has been a regular consultant to a variety of non governmental and intergovernmental organisations on disarmament, arms control, conflict resolution, development and regional security issues. He has written or edited  6 books and over 160 chapters /articles on conflict transformation, peacebuilding, preventive diplomacy and development.