Peter Wallensteen, a leading peace researcher known around the world for his contributions to the peace studies field, was honored at the 59th annual North American Meeting of the Peace Science Society (International), where he received the organization’s 2025 Founder’s Medal. The gathering took place Nov. 13-15 in Orlando, Fla., with the University of Central Florida hosting, and featured six workshops, 72 paper presentations, and 27 poster presentations.
From 2006 to 2018, Wallensteen was the Richard G. Starmann, Sr. Research Professor of Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, part of the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. He serves on the Kroc Institute’s advisory board and is professor emeritus at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Sweden’s Uppsala University, where he directed the Uppsala Conflict Data Program until 2015 and continues to lead the Special Program on the Implementation of Targeted Sanctions.
“Peter’s win is a well-deserved honor,” said Asher Kaufman, John M. Regan, Jr. Director of the Kroc Institute and Professor of History and Peace Studies. “He is one of the lumineries of our field. We, at the Kroc Institute, are grateful for his teaching and mentoring of our students and his current service on our advisory board.”
The Founder’s Medal recognizes distinguished, lifelong academic contributions and service to peace research. Wallensteen has been a pioneer in collecting data on conflict and was instrumental in the development of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University and lending his expertise at the Kroc Institute.
After the Florida meeting, Wallensteen flew to the University of Notre Dame, where he and Laurie Nathan, director of the Kroc Institute’s Mediation Program, led a session on Nov. 18 on the value of international mediation, “Is International Mediation Still Relevant?” Wallensteen shared insight from his recent book co-authored with Isak Svensson, The Peacemaking Mandate, which covers the mediation experiences of Nordic countries over the past 80 years and offers general conclusions that are relevant to contemporary international mediation.
