ACUNS 2023 Annual Meeting: Call for Proposals

THE ACADEMIC COUNCIL ON
THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM
2023 ANNUAL MEETING

“MAKING, KEEPING, AND SUSTAINING PEACE”

 

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

 

Location: United States Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.
Dates: Wednesday, 21 June – Thursday, 22 June 2023

Opening Keynote Address, 21 June:
Dr. Rosemary A. DiCarlo
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs

Holmes Lecture, 22 June:
Mr. Jean-Pierre Lacroix
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations

The United Nations and other organizations laid the foundations for international peace after World War II, and those foundations remained robust at the end of the Cold War. In this time of change and turmoil, what entities serve as the pillars of international cooperation and peace? What can we learn from previous efforts at making, keeping, and sustaining peace? The year 2023 marks the 75th anniversary of the advent of both UN special political missions and UN peacekeeping. In the current geopolitical context, what are the prospects for future special political missions and peacekeeping operations? How must they adapt? How can the rules-based order adapt? How do climate change, gender, inequality, strategic risk, new weaponry, and other issues intersect with war and peace? As in previous years, we also welcome substantive contributions on the UN’s broader agenda, e.g., sustainable development, gender, human rights, the rule of law, environmental and health governance, etc. How might scholars, policy-makers, and policy-shapers help render the UN more effective, in all areas of its essential work?

The meeting supports ACUNS’ core mission of bringing together scholars and practitioners who are active in the work of the UN to better understand and address major global problems. ACUNS especially appreciates submissions from the Global South. ACUNS welcomes proposals from scholars, students, practitioners, policymakers, policy-shapers, and UN staff and delegates, in the following forms (click the blue boxes for links to submission forms):

Group-Organized Panels, Theme Roundtables, or Book Roundtables Individual Working Papers, Policy Briefs, or Digital Tools

Group-organized: A group organizes a panel or roundtable, striving for diversity in many forms, such as scholar/practitioner mix, gender, geography, career stage, and methodology. In cooperation with the other participants, one member of the group submits all details (including names, affiliations, abstracts, etc). Note that group-organized proposals are more likely to be accepted into the final program. Group-organized proposals can take one of the following forms:

  • Panel (3-4 working papers and/or policy briefs plus a chair and a discussant)
  • Book roundtable (5 experts, including the author/editor, discuss a book)
  • Theme roundtable (5 experts discuss a theme)

Individual: An individual or co-authors submit a paper, policy brief or tool. You will need to submit name(s), affiliation(s), and an abstract. ACUNS vets the proposals, groups into panels, and assigns a chair and discussant. Individual proposals can take one of the following forms:

  • Working paper (unpublished research paper or book chapter)
  • Policy brief (4-6 pages that lay out a problem, its causes, and solutions)
  • Digital tool (for example, an app to display and share information)

The deadline to submit proposals is 20 January 2023. You will have to create an account with Oxford Abstracts, which is free and takes just a few minutes. Selected participants will be notified in early February 2023.

Membership-based non-profit associations such as ACUNS rely on fees for operations. If selected, participants who are not ACUNS members will be asked to join the ACUNS membership. The meeting fee is $100 for in-person attendance and $30 for virtual. If the fees present a financial hardship, and for any other questions, contact annualmeeting@acuns.org.