CRIC 2024, our annual conference, will be held from 23rd – 25th September 2024 in Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. This will be our 11th Annual Conference and it is taking place amid deepening concerns about the deteriorating geo-political climate. It is not just the worsening violence in the Russia/Ukraine war and between Israel and the Palestinians, but also the conflicts that are spreading more widely in the Middle East, in Sudan and other parts of Africa, Asia and indeed right across the world. There is a real danger not only that the current wars will spread and merge, but that more major conflicts will break out in the upcoming year.
This year our conference theme will be “Ending Wars” and we will address two perspectives –
- Exploring whether it is possible that out of the immediate worldwide crises of war and climate catastrophe a new approach can be fashioned to deal with our deepest differences, as was the case, albeit not permanently, after the two global conflicts of the first half of the 20th century.
- For those who have the more modest ambition of bringing some of the current wars to an end, there is much to be explored if we are to understand how the current specific and overlapping wars can be closed down.
As you can see, we have chosen the goddess, Minerva, as a symbol of CRIC 2024. She was the Roman goddess of war, but also of wisdom, art, justice and commerce. Can we bring wisdom to bear on the problem of war?
Our Annual Conference in September has become something of an institution and a very successful and eagerly anticipated calendar commitment for many colleagues around the world. It has now been adopted as a major on-going project by The Concord Foundation http://www.theconcordfoundation.org – one of our key sponsors last year. The Global Humanity for Peace Institute at the University of Wales Trinity St David has also promised further assistance https://ghfp.institute/ It was through GHfPI that we were able to record last years presentations and upload them to our YouTube Channel in much higher quality than previously and we very much appreciate their support. You should use this link to go on-line and remind yourself of some of last year’s top quality lectures and also pass the link on to other colleagues so that they may benefit too – https://www.youtube.com/@cric-oxford
Last year the New England Journal of Public Policy invited me to be the Guest Editor for a Special Issue featuring some of the papers from CRIC 2023 and this will very shortly be published on-line, and later in print. We will let you know about these publications, but I can tell you that I am delighted with the quality of the papers. I am also looking forward to the CRIC 2024 programme which is already shaping up well – but more of that in a later post.
