Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung is founder and Director of TRANSCEND - A Peace and Development Network for Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means, with more than 300 members from over 80 countries around the world and Rector of TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU).

An experienced peace worker and Professor of Peace Studies, he is widely regarded as the founder of the academic discipline of peace research and one of the leading pioneers of peace and conflict transformation in theory and practice. He has played an active role in helping mediate and prevent violence in 45 major conflicts around the world over the past four decades, and is author of the United Nations’ first ever manual for trainers and participants on "Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means: The TRANSCEND Approach” (UNDP 2000). He has taught Peace Studies at the Universities of Hawai'i, Witten/Herdecke, Tromsoe, Alicante, Ritsumeikan and the European Peace University, among many others. Galtung established the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) in 1959, the Journal of Peace Research in 1964, and co-launched the Nordic Institute for Peace Research (NIFF) in 2000.

He has published more than 1000 articles covering a wide-range of fields, including peaceful conflict transformation, deep culture, peace pedogogy, reconciliation, development,  peace building and empowerment, global governance, direct structural and cultural peace/violence, peace journalism, and reflections on current events, and more than 100 books translated into dozens of languages.  His most recent books include Transcend and Transform (Pluto Press, 2004), Searching for Peace the Road to TRANSCEND (Pluto, 2000 & 2002), Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization.  (Sage, 1996), Collective Essays on Peace Research and Methodology (Christian Ejlers, Copenhagen) 60 Speeches on War and Peace (PRIO, 1990)].