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Regions around the world are affected by armed conflict and associated crises, including poverty, food insecurity, displacement, human rights violations, destruction of culture heritage, and more.  

As an institution committed to research and scholarship, education, preservation, and practice, Yale is engaged in programs and initiatives that contribute academic expertise on issues affecting conflict and post-conflict regions and their communities.  

Home to a robust global community, Yale also works to support faculty, students, staff, and scholars impacted by regional and global conflicts.  

The following compilation of activities and programs is not exhaustive but intends to highlight the breadth of work across Yale’s schools and units.  In addition to school and unit-based efforts, students, faculty, staff, and alumni often collaborate and organize their own initiatives, based on research and personal interests. 

Helping Scholars at Risk and Yale community members affected by conflict

Yale brings to campus scholars affected by global conflict to join the community, teach, learn and prepare for their professional futures. Through the Scholars at Risk program, scholars, practitioners and artists have been selected from countries and territories including Afghanistan, Belarus, Gaza, Haiti, Myanmar, Russia, and Sudan. In addition, the Office of International Affairs plays a key role in supporting students and scholars from conflict zones.

Scholars at Risk

Through the Scholars at Risk program, begun in 2023, Yale invites scholars affected by conflict around the world to join our community, teach, learn, and prepare for their professional futures. Thus far, scholars and artists have been selected from countries and territories including Afghanistan, Belarus, Gaza, Haiti, Myanmar, Russia, and Sudan.

Read the recent invitation to faculty, calling for nominations for the Scholars at Risk program.

Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS)

Yale’s OISS plays key roles in supporting students and scholars from conflict zones, including:

• Assisting with challenging and stressful visa processes.
• Helping with their initial transition to the U.S. and Yale, and offering continuous support throughout their time at the university.
• Assisting with immigration options, such as obtaining permission to stay beyond their Yale programs.

OISS also conducts continuous and direct outreach during crises, providing one-on-one support to students and scholars. During crises, OISS coordinates with the Office of the President and the Office of the Secretary and Vice President for Student Life to provide support to the community.

Members of the community are also supported by faculty, staff, and offices in Yale College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the professional schools, who provide services, information, guidance, and leadership opportunities for students. Yale’s residential colleges, Cultural Centers, Chaplain’s Office, and numerous mental health resources also play a key role in offering services, support, and gathering spaces to those who are affected by conflict.

Conducting research and teaching on conflict, peacebuilding, and rebuilding

Yale is a center for scholarship on conflict and peacebuilding, and Yale faculty, students, and staff, especially in response to recent conflicts, have put their scholarship and international connections to work. Faculty and students also work with partners in conflict zones to help rebuild societies affected by war.

Yale faculty, students, and staff engage in numerous activities to study, teach, and create partnerships that enhance understanding of global conflict and contribute to solutions. Pathways to peacebuilding and rebuilding conflict-affected societies are a crucial part of efforts to support individuals and communities affected by conflict and its aftermath.

Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies

The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale pursues excellence in research, teaching, and capacity-building across societies to bring about a more informed, inclusive, and flourishing world. Its regional councils and global programs promote interdisciplinary, transnational scholarship, teaching, and exchanges on topics including conflict, resilience, regional history, political violence, and more. Examples of recent coursework related to conflict, peacebuilding, and rebuilding offered in affiliation with MacMillan Center follow.

• On Ukraine, Professor Andrei Kureichik is teaching a Comparative Literature course on “Art and Resistance in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine,” which examines the role that protest art has played in the struggle of society against authoritarianism and totalitarianism. It focuses on the example of the Soviet and post-Soviet transformation of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, and also examines the art of protest against the modern post-Soviet dictatorships of Alexander Lukashenka in Belarus and Vladimir Putin in Russia, the protest art of the Ukrainian Maidan, and the anti-war movement of artists against the Russian-Ukrainian war.

• Professor Lauren Young is also teaching a course in Political Science on “The Geopolitics of War in Ukraine,” which examines the roots of the conflict, the role of international institutions, the humanitarian effects of war, and the role of the international community in mitigating the human cost of conflict and the broader economic and policy implications.

• The MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies has partnered with departments and schools to bring scholars from the Middle East to Yale to enhance understanding of the current conflict, its economic and political roots, and options for the future. Supplementing regular faculty courses such as Professor Marcia Inhorn’s “Culture and Politics in the Contemporary Middle East,” and Professor Jonathan Wyrtzen’s “World War I and the Making of the Modern Middle East,” new courses in academic year 2024-2025 to be listed by Middle East Studies and Political Science include “The Politics of Israel in Comparative Perspective,” and “Politics and Economics of the Middle East”. This year, the MacMillan Center’s Council on Middle East Studies has devoted sessions in its fall colloquium to focus on the current conflict in the region.

• At the Jackson School of Global Affairs, Professor Bonnie Weir offers a course on “War and Peace in Northern Ireland,” which draws on her deep knowledge and connections in the region to look at questions about the insurgency and uneasy peace in Northern Ireland following the peace agreement of 1998 that formally ended “The Troubles.” The course considers how both the conflict and the peace have been messier and arguably more divisive than most outside observers realize.

For an overall understanding of the economic roots of conflict, MacMillian affiliate and Professor Gerard Padro teaches a popular course on “The Economics of Conflict,” which applies microeconomic techniques to the analysis of internal violent conflict, including civil wars, terrorism and insurgencies, its causes and consequences. Topics include forced migration, ethnic conflict, the long-term consequences of war, and individual choices to participate in violence.

Conflict, Resilience, and Health (CRH)

The Conflict, Resilience, and Health Program is an interdisciplinary group that works to build resilience and health in communities afflicted by armed conflict or structural violence. Led by Professor Catherine Panter-Brick, Bruce A. and Davi-Ellen Chabner Professor of Anthropology, Health, and Global Affairs, this program engages with academics, practitioners, and policy makers to promote innovations in global health research and to evaluate resilience-building interventions.

Identity & Conflict Lab (ICL)

The Identity & Conflict Lab (ICL) conducts problem-driven research in the social sciences with a focus on conflict and identity politics. It integrates insights from numerous disciplines and promotes the application of sophisticated quantitative and qualitative methods to explore questions in conflict studies and in the field of identity politics. It unifies the strengths and different skill sets of experimentalists, applied statisticians, archival researchers, and ethnographers to deepen understanding of violent inter-group conflict across countries and over time. Recent ICL projects have focused on how to best reduce conflict and improve relations between migrants and locals in the European Union, including Greece and Germany. Nicholas Sambanis, Kalsi Family Professor of Political Science, is the ICL’s founder and faculty director. Learn more.

Peacebuilding Initiative (PBI)

The Peacebuilding Initiative (PBI) at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs works toward understanding pathways to peace and documenting how policy efforts can build a more lasting peace. Faculty affiliates are leading a global comparative study to help realize a more peaceful twenty-first century, including multi-site research with partners in Costa Rica, Jordan, Mauritania, United Kingdom, as well as with New Haven communities and the United Nations. The initiative hosts an annual colloquium and speaker events to consolidate lessons learned and develop the peacebuilding network anchored at Yale. The 2025 Peacebuilding Colloquium will be held April 8.

The Peacebuilding Initiative also works to develop peace-based course offerings across the university, through which students learn to think critically about what drives conflict and sustainable peace.

Fourteen Yale undergraduate and five Yale graduate courses relevant to conflict and peace are taught by Jackson-affiliated scholars; four of these were newly designed for spring 2024. Courses are offered across the subjects of Global Affairs, History, Political Science, Religion, Management, Health Studies, East Asian Studies, American Studies, Anthropology and Ethics, Politics & Economics. They have included, among others,

• GLBL 6265 – Rebuilding Nations After Atrocity (David Simon)
• GLBL 289/PLSC 431/HIST 245J – War and Peace in Northern Ireland (Bonnie Weir)
• HLTH 302 – Peacebuilding: History, Health, and Policy (Cara Fallon)
• GLBL 313 – The United Nations on the Ground (Jessica Faieta)
• GLBL 430 – Turning Points in Peace-building (Bisa Williams)
• AMST 269 – Digital War (Madiha Tahir)

Peace Fellowship 

The Peace Fellowship at the Jackson School’s International Leadership Center (ILC) brings emerging leaders on peace to Yale for an intensive period of research, mentoring, and training; and to participate in high-level strategy events on peace and conflict resolution. The fellowship is managed in collaboration with Inter Mediate, a leading peacemaking organization dedicated to ending armed conflict, and its CEO Jonathan Powell, who was the lead British negotiator for the Good Friday Agreement. Visit the ILC website to learn more about the Peace Fellows, whose work spans from Palestine to Ethiopia.

Humanitarian Research Lab

Based at the Yale School of Public Health, the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) uses the fusion of open-source and remote sensing data to develop innovative methodologies to document humanitarian crises and assess the public health of communities impacted by atrocities related to conflict. The HRL works with scholars and organizations around the world, including those in conflict zones.

HRL faculty teach the course “Health in Humanitarian Crises,” which provides students with foundational knowledge and tools of public health in humanitarian crises, particularly armed conflict.

Training healthcare workers from conflict zones 

In 2023, Yale physicians working with Doctors for Ukraine brought six critical care doctors from Ukraine to train at Yale, where they worked with 74 Yale healthcare professionals to learn new pain control techniques, kidney transplant medicine, and high-risk pregnancy management—techniques they could take back to their country to share with colleagues dealing with the casualties of conflict. 

Rebuilding Ukraine

In September 2022, Yale School of Art Professor Marta Kuzma co-organized a major online international conference titled “The Reconstruction of Ukraine: Ruination / Representation / Solidarity,” in collaboration with the Lviv Center for Urban History and other institutions. Co-sponsored by Yale’s MacMillan Center and Office of International Affairs, this multidisciplinary conference considered the effects of the conflict and how to rebuild Ukraine’s architecture in its broadest sense: its cities, architecture, art, and culture, as well as how to repair the psychological traumas of the invasion and war.  The conference itself has resulted in numerous publications and ongoing initiatives.

Providing access to Yale’s academic resources

As an international research university, Yale seeks to share knowledge with the world. Yale’s open access resources and online learning opportunities are accessible to scholars and students around the world, including those from conflict zones. Yale is also involved in open access initiatives and partnerships.

Free access to Yale’s digital collections

Millions of digitized objects from Yale’s libraries, archives, and museums are freely available to anyone in the world with an internet connection. These resources can be accessed through LUX and the library’s Digital Collections. 

Support for open access initiatives

As a university, Yale supports and contributes membership fees to numerous Open Access initiatives. Watch a video about how Yale University Library supports open access.

Global access to Yale’s online learning opportunities

Courses taught by Yale faculty members and other online learning opportunities are available to a global audience through the Yale Online initiative. An offerings catalogue provides a central listing of opportunities offered across the university, including many free programs. Yale courses and content have been accessed by users from all over the world, including those from conflict zones whose access to scholarly content and learning opportunities have been impacted.

Research4Life

Yale University Library is a founding partner of Research4Life, a public-private partnership of the World Health Organization; Food and Agriculture Organization; United Nations Environment Programme; World Intellectual Property Organization; International Labour Organization; Cornell and Yale Universities; the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers; and more than 200 international publishers. Research4Life’s goal is to reduce the knowledge gap between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries by providing affordable access to scholarly, professional, and research information in the disciplines of medicine, agriculture, environment, technology, and law.

Researchers at more than 8,000 eligible institutions in more than 100 countries benefit from online access to up to 69,000 peer-reviewed international scholarly and professional journals, books, and databases, and full-text articles that can be downloaded for saving, printing, or reading on screen. 

Yale University supports the partnership in several different ways:

• The Lillian Goldman Law Library provides metadata support and collection development expertise for the GOALI (Research for Global Justice) program.
• The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library provides metadata support for the partnership, and collection development expertise in selecting materials for the HINARI (Research for Health) program. In 2015, the HINARI program received the Medical Library Association’s Louise Darling Medal for Collection Development in the Health Sciences.

Yale librarians serve on several Research4Life working groups and the Executive Council.

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To learn more about Yale’s international engagement, visit the Yale and the World website.