Committee member

Kevin Clements

Foundation Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies

Kevin Clements is the Foundation Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies and Director of the New Zealand Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, as well as Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association. Prior to taking up these positions he was the Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

He went to Queensland from International Alert where he was Secretary General from January 1999 to September 2003. International Alert is one of the world’s largest NGOs working on conflict transformation. 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, Professor Clements was the Vernon and Minnie Lynch Chair of Conflict Resolution at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, in the USA, from 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. Earlier he was 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 President of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) from 1994-1998, President of the IPRA Foundation from 1995-2000, and Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Peace Research Association.

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 seven books and over 150 chapters/articles on conflict transformation, peacebuilding, preventive diplomacy and development with a specific focus on the Asia Pacific region.