PeaceReturn Project
Funded Value:
£ 2,250,935.90
Funded Period:
Apr 24 - Mar 29
Funder:
EPSRC
Project Status:
Open
Project Category:
Research GrantProject Reference:
EP/Z000408/1
Principal Investigator:
Neophytos Loizides
PEACERETURN focuses on victims of forced displacement and their decisions to return home. Despite the growing consensus among governments, international NGOs, and frequently victims of displacement themselves of the value of peaceful voluntary return, the proportion of actual returnees worldwide has been in significant decline in the past three decades. We know very little about why voluntary return is declining and what leads to partially successful returns or failures.
In PEACERETURN, I investigate how displaced persons decide whether to return home or not to return and ask why some return, despite the odds and without reigniting past conflict. In order to understand this complex issue, I will develop a global database of conflict-induced displacements and draw on representative cases around the world to provide generalizable knowledge on the mediation processes, community mobilization efforts and micro-institutional designs more likely to support returnees.
We are undertaking a comparative research program that investigates how return is negotiated and implemented in ways that are voluntary, peaceful, and sustainable in seven countries: Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ukraine representing different stages of return, prohibitive conditions, and outcomes. This multi-method interdisciplinary research will cut across comparative politics, social psychology, and conflict and gender studies, using a combination of archival research, expert interviews, surveys and experiments, citizen-led mediations/simulations, and focused comparisons of case studies. By investigating a central question in refugee studies- why and how some displaced manage to return home-the project will inform regional and global responses to forced migration.
Grace Joan Bachoke
University of Warwick
Daryna Dvornichecko
University of Warwick
Daryna Dvornichenko joins PeaceReturn for Ukrainian displacement PhD studentship
PeaceReturn in honoured to have Daryna Dvornichenko join our team within our PhD programme. Daryna is a Ukrainian scholar and British Academy Researcher at Risk Fellow based at the University of Oxford. She has previously held research fellowships at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the University of Wrocław, and King’s College London. Daryna serves on the board of the Humans for Rights Network, is a UN Women Delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women, and is a research affiliate at the Refugee Law Initiative. She is also the founder of the Ukraine-based NGO Agents of Change, which is dedicated to empowering displaced women.
Grace Joan Bachoke joins PeaceReturn for Gender PhD studentship
We are delighted that Grace Joan Bachoke has joined the PeaceReturn project as part of its PhD programme. Mr Bachoke is a Congolese human rights advocate and British Chevening alumnus with expertise in children’s rights, refugee protection and gender-based violence. He is a Professional Development Fellow at the Battered Women’s Justice Project (BWJP), contributing to U.S. State Department-funded GBV justice reform. He is the Founder of EDEN World Foundation and its ABANA Centre, a grassroots initiative based in the Kivu region offering holistic support to conflict-affected women, including survivors of sexual violence, girls formerly associated with armed groups, and displaced young mothers. Joan holds a Master’s in Human Rights, Culture, and Social Justice from Goldsmiths, University of London, a Certificate in Public Management from Howard University and is a Mandela Washington alumnus. His work has been internationally recognized with awards including the UNESCO Nelson Mandela Award and the World’s Children’s Prize, presented by Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden.
Webinar: Rethinking the Future of the Peace, Development and Humanitarian Sector (organized by SeeD, University of Warwick, and the University of Cyprus)
For decades, the United States and USAID have been central to financing and shaping the global peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian sectors. However, with evolving geopolitical priorities, a changing donor landscape, and growing calls for locally-led solutions, the sector faces significant questions about its future. This event seeks to explore how the peace and development ecosystem can adapt to a world with reduced reliance on US and USAID funding, identifying opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and sustainability. Topic: Reimagining the Future of the Peace, Development, and Humanitarian Sector Date: 26th March 2025Duration: 2 hours Our distinguished panellists:
- Ako Essan Emile, Conflict Management Specialist
- Prof. Briony Jones, Scholar in Peace and Justice
- Dr. Jared L. Ordway, Peacebuilding Expert
- Dr. Theo Hollander, Regional Conflict Advisor at IOM
- Opening remarks: Prof Neophytos Loizides, Professor of International Conflict Analysis at the University of Warwick
- Chair/Moderator: Dr Ilke Dagli-Hustings, Director General, SeeD
- Co-moderator: Alexander Guest, SeeD
- Closing remarks & moving forward: Dr Alexandros Lordos, Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Cyprus
Publications
Unlocking the Cyprus Peace Process: Backstops could be an option (N. Loizides, M. Onurkan-Samani, E. Kaymak and C. Psaltis)
A team of Greek and Turkish Cypriot academics have published a joint piece mapping the way forward after the Geneva summit addressing the gaps in the current process. The article is authored by four members of the Greek-Turkish Forum working for decades on the Cyprus problem and following months of consultations with civil society organizations and the UN. Entitled ‘Unlocking the Cyprus Peace Process: Backstops could be an option’, the article examines why backstops have become the new buzzword in international mediations; what are the precedents in Cyprus and elsewhere; and most feasible proposals for the future. The article is available here.
Conferences
PeaceReturn presence at international conferences will be recorded here.
Impact
WEBINAR: Rethinking the Future of the Peace, Development, and Humanitarian Sector (26th March 2025)
On 26th March 2025, PEACERETURN hosted a webinar, "Rethinking the Future of the Peace, Development, and Humanitarian Sector" in collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Peace and Democratic Development and the University of Cyprus. You can watch the recording hereLink opens in a new window.
Key Takeaway:
This isn’t a temporary funding crisis—it’s a sectoral turning point. Peacebuilding, development and humanitarian sectors must move from being a standalone sectors to a system enablers —essential, embedded, and accountable.
Summary of the deliberation:
The sector is facing a tectonic shift—from donor priorities to geopolitical realignments. The 2024 U.S. aid suspension, alongside longer-term reductions from other donors, has exposed systemic vulnerabilities:
- Displacement, food insecurity, and aid vacuums are rapidly deepening in conflict zones.
- Peacebuilding, increasingly framed as a national security tool, risks becoming marginalised.
- Fragile states may turn to non-state actors to fill service gaps, introducing new risks and accountability dilemmas.
- Intermediary INGOs face obsolescence unless they embed, enhance and build alliances within other sectors (e.g. education, health care, infrastructure).
Yet, participants also highlighted opportunities for critical reflection and renewal:
- Rethinking dependency and embracing local leadership.
- Empowering grassroots actors, universities, and citizen-led initiatives.
- Scaling horizontally and innovatively financing peace through tools like peace bonds, CSR rethinking, and peace offset,
- while foregrounding ethics and equity concerns when thinking about all of the above
Our dialogues centred on confronting not just a funding crisis, but a deeper power shift, urging us to preserve essential values while boldly adapting structures. We explored new models of resilience, ring-fencing aid from politicization, and fostering cross-sectoral alliances.
Strategic Imperatives & Recommendations:
- Move beyond survivalism towards sustainable, justice-centered transformation.
- Embed peacebuilding into core systems such as education, migration, and healthcare.
- Safeguard and reimagine our sector’s moral and social capital.
- Pivot to demonstrate value and impact more concretely such as through cost-benefit analyses, risk modelling, and return on ‘investment’ of cohesion.
- Diversify alliances and partnerships: Forge ties with Global South institutions, academia and the private sector.
- Reimagine delivery models: Operate lean, modular, and locally rooted.
- Embrace participatory foresight and transition-anger to channel righteous dissatisfaction into actionable hope.
Cyprus Spring School (10-13th March 2025)
University of Warwick Undergraduate, Zach Fischer, participated in the 4-day Conflict Resolution and Mediation Workshop held in the Green Line in Cyprus. Organized by Cypology, a multi-communal youth initiative that bridges academic research with public engagement, this field trip included participants from both communities in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey as well as from the broader region including Lebanese, Israeli and Palestinian youth. The training featured a Kelman interactive problem solving workshop (by Maria Hadvipavlou), a Café Diplomatico negotiations training (by Betul Celik and Neophytos Loizides) and a field trip “We Are Not Ghosts: Varosha Narratives” through the poetry stations of the soundwalk by Nafia Akdeniz as well as presentations by leading academics and civil society leaders in Cyprus and the broader region https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100081319602807.
Contact
If you have any questions or would like to know more about the PeaceReturn project, please get in touch:
peace.return@warwick.ac.uk