Bologna Peacebuilding Forum
Peace processes have complex dynamics. Peacebuilding practitioners have few opportunities to reflect on their work and share their expertise with fellow professionals or researchers. At the same time, scholars experience the same and opposite challenge. Indeed, they have a comprehensive view of the discipline and entertain exchanges with other fellow experts. Still, they often lack direct interaction with peacebuilding practitioners in the field.
The Bologna Peacebuilding Forum aims to bridge this gap by offering a space for dialogue between peacebuilding scholars and practitioners. Furthermore, the BPF strives to open up the discussion to a larger audience comprising foreign policy experts, civil society actors, and the public opinion. From 2019, the BPF has developed as a major annual gathering fostering open and constructive dialogue on key issues and challenges facing the discipline.
Now in its 8th year, the BPF offers a platform for debating relevant and timely topics concerning various aspects of peacebuilding.
Theme for 2026 - "Ending Wars: Shaping New Paths to Peace"
In a world marked by protracted violent conflicts, rising polarisation, and the instrumentalisation of peace language, the challenge of bringing wars to an end and building lasting peace has never been greater.
With diplomatic resources and political will eroding, and trust in mediation at a historic low, more than fifty wars continue unabated across the globe. Comprehensive peace agreements have been absent in recent years, and where deals are reached, they are often limited in scope and short-lived.
At the same time, peace-washing, the use of peace rhetoric to conceal practices that perpetuate inequality, violence, or domination, threatens to hollow out the very meaning of peace. As funding for the peacebuilding sector declines, innovative approaches to ending violent conflicts and sustaining peace are needed.
The Bologna Peacebuilding Forum 2026 will explore what it truly means to “end wars” in the present era: not only stopping violence, but transforming the systems and conditions that sustain it. Through dialogue among policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and students, the Forum will examine both the emerging challenges surrounding long-term peace agreements and the promise and peril of new technologies in peacebuilding.
The event aims to move beyond rhetoric towards practical pathways for complex dialogue, to strengthen multilateral cooperation, and to reimagine peace for an interconnected and increasingly contested world.
More information
The description was extracted from peacebuilding.eu.
