Director, Thomas Clough Daffern  B.A. (Hons) D.Sc. (Hon) PGCE Ph.D.
Secretary General, Mary Napper B.A. (Hons.)
International Secretaries: Sheena McDonagh (UK) and Ruth Kempe (Bermuda)
Treasurer:  Jenny Wheatcroft B.A. (New Zealand)
Global Ambassador: Mrs. Krystyna Stevenson B.Sc. (Spain)
Co-Chairs: Ms Eleni Stamiris (Greece) and Prof. C. Hogan (Australia)
Media Office: Ms Nicola Hague (UK)
Rhos Gallt, Llanerfyl, Powys, Wales, SY21 0ER, Tel 01938 820586 Mobile: 07951 600959
Many new publications on the Institute's themes are available for purchase from the Institute office, and a comprehensive catalogue of publications printed by the Institute has now been added to this website.
This represents a major new development in the life of the Institute.
 
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON
THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE
OF PEACE  STUDIES AND GLOBAL PHILOSOPHY

The Institute is unique among research centres throughout the world in that it combines training and practical work in conflict resolution with studying the entire range of global philosophical and spiritual traditions, together with the proactive search for global responsibility and justice in our time.  Founded in 1990, arising out of a feasibility study investigating the possibility of creating a Peace Studies Institute (PSI) in the University of London, and subsequent years of active educational research, networking and consultancy, everyone interested in advancing peace studies in London, the UK, and internationally is invited to join us. The Institute has also built on the work of Philosophers and Historians for Peace, an international networking organisation founded in  London in 1985. IIPSGP Members are a scattered international network of scholars, teachers, students, thinkers, academics, faith leaders,  and visionaries involved in a wide range of educational and research activities in both professional and voluntary capacities in all aspects of peace research, environmental education, comparative spirituality and philosophy.

With our unique library and archive on peace research and global philosophy (catalogued partly online) the Institute acts as a support structure and information clearinghouse to empower individuals to develop their own research and action projects in the fields of peace and global ethics and works co-operatively alongside many other institutions and professional networks worldwide. We organise meetings, seminars and lectures programmes, while regular seminars have been held in the House of Lords focusing on 'Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding', 'Ethics, Politics and Economics', 'Social Development and Global Justice'. A  'Peace and Global Responsibility Studies Course" is available, combining independent study, correspondence tuition, teacher training, service work in the community,  and occasional peer group seminars & study retreats. A small Secretariat and Advisory Council service the work of the Institute, which is a voluntary educational charity, along with volunteers and interns; for internship/ student / faculty positions (for consideration of which, membership of the Institute is a preliminary requirement).

The Institute supports the work of the major interfaith organisations worldwide (World Conference on Religion and Peace;   World Congress of Faiths;   United Religions Initiative;   Initiative for a UN Decade of  Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, Understanding and Cooperation for Peace;   World Parliament of Religions;   World Network of Religious Futurists; etc.) The Institute also supports the work of scientific and secular organisations working for planetary change, peace and transformation, such as UNESCO;   ALESCO;   Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR);   The International Peace Research Association (IPRA);   PUGWASH;   The Conflict Research Society;   The Union of Imaginable Associations;   The International Union of Associations (AUA);etc.    The IIPSGP Director has served in an official capacity for several of these organisations, both in the interfaith and scientific communities.  Uniquely positioned across the secular-spiritual divide, as befits a philosophical and academic institution,  IIPSGP calls for dialogue between scientists and spiritual thinkers worldwide to advance rational discourse, dialogue and research into the ways and means of securing a peaceful global society.

  • The Institute founded and runs the pioneering MULTIFAITH AND MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION AND MEDIATION SERVICE serving in situations of conflict or violence involving a religious or cultural dimension. The MMMS is run as both a consultancy and voluntary effort and is available for situations needing outside intervention to resolve, and tackles disputes ranging  from the small to the very large. We have also recently inaugurated Just Justice as an advocacy project for conflicts in which mediation is inappropriate and there is rather need for legal help and advice.

  • We have also founded  the COMMONWEALTH INTERFAITH NETWORK linking together educators, peace activists, environmentalists, human rights and social development specialists from Commonwealth member countries helping to transform the Commonwealth into a vibrant community of nations bearing witness to a wider world order based on peace and a love for common values and spirituality. The IIPSGP Director is a British-Canadian dual citizen. IIPSGP also aims to establish eventually a Global Peace School for children.

  • Meanwhile, THE GLOBAL GREEN UNIVERSITY , founded by IIPSGP in 2000,  is an international network of educators and activists committed to building a peaceful, just, ecologically sane, cooperative and sustainable global society which accepts students for higher degree research on topics of importance to global well being. (Alternative energy, new management studies, communications, transpersonal knowledge, new physics etc.).

  • THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION FOR BRITAIN AND IRELAND is an important project of IIPSGP and is a forum for those who were or are involved in the bitter conflicts over Northern Ireland to come forward and share their sorrow and remorse, and also to build a positive future of peace for both islands – it stands for celebrating the cultural differences of Christian and Druid, Catholic and Protestant, plus all other faith traditions of Ireland and Britain, republican and loyalist, in a spirit of amity and intelligence. It has met in Holyhead (2006), Dublin (2007) and it's next meeting in Belfast (July 25 2009). 

  • THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION  FOR THE MIDDLE EAST is a similar project  launched to establish common ground and dialogue between the parties involved in Middle Eastern countries, and it calls for reconciliation between Israel and Palestine (based on a lasting,  just, two state solution and total mutual nonviolence);  the withdrawal of USA and UK troops from Iraq and their replacement  by a UN peacekeeping force (made up from mostly Islamic countries); the immediate total cessation of all acts of terrorism as non-Islamic (suicide is illegal in Islamic spiritual law). The TRCME met in Israel and Palestine in   August 2008 and a film of the meetings is available on www.holisticchannel.org.uk .  The subsequent tragic outbreak of fighting over Gaza makes this work even more important than before and we hope to return for further discussions in Israel, Palestine and Egypt in August 2009. The TRCME is also calling for a negotiated truce and peace agreement between all forces currently fighting in Afghanistan, and the replacement of the search for military solutions with the search for intellectual, educational, theological, spiritual and philosophical solutions. There is no reason why according to Islamic teachings, peace and reconciliation cannot be restored between all parties. The Quran, the Hadith and the Islamic spiritual teachings of all denominations urge peace and reconciliation as the primary duty on all Muslims – whose very name means peace. Likewise to Christians, whose founder revered peace above all – and stated that peacemakers shall be like Children of God. The TRCME seeks immediate theological reconciliation and peace making between the faiths and parties of the Middle East in a new unbreakable covenant which can make genuine peace, security and wisdom the priority for all in the region. Diplomats and politicians alone cannot make peace in the Middle East – they have failed miserably for too long. Instead,  spiritual Saints and faith leaders, Sages and secular thinkers, Sufis, Kabbalists and Christian mystics, learned scholars and scientists, intellectuals and artists, musicians, philosophers and poets, women and young people … all must help with their work and encourage  an end to the cycles of violence in the region. It is time for the people of peace in all lands to speak out, silently, in their hearts, and invoke the ancient power of wisdom to heal the region.

  • The Institute is also involved in working towards the establishment of a EUROPEAN UNION MEDIATION SERVICE – after the debacle of war in the Caucasus in August 2008, when Russia and Georgia fought over South Ossetia, and the “Gas Conflict” between Russia and Ukraine, and the tragedy of the Gaza conflict in 2009, it is now an imperative, in the eyes of IIPSGP that a new professional mediation service be established for the European Union by Treaty. Europe has been the origin point of two vast world wars in the 20th century, and a host of other smaller conflicts. We urge that is should now become the seat of the establishment of a lasting institutional mechanism for the solution of conflicts before they reach the level of violence.

    • Click here for the text of the SUMMARY OF EUROPEAN UNION MEDIATION SERVICE PROPOSAL ...

     

  • The Institute also produces several publications for its members.  THE MUSES JOURNAL: LOVE, COMPASSION  AND  PEACE  - THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF  PEACE RESEARCH AND GLOBAL PHILOSOPHY is the only academic journal in the world dedicated to education and research into the positive dynamics of building global peace and justice through love. The journal is structured according to the Nine Muses, the guardians of the Classical Academy; as an academic journal it seeks to restore the lost intellectual and spiritual vision of the interconnectedness of knowledge, spirituality, aesthetics, feeling, and moral and political responsibility that comprise the educational principles of academic life in their ideal form. An occasional IIPSGP Newsletter  includes news of developments for peace and global responsibility, particularly those involving research and higher education. Other publications include: Multilingual and Multifaith Dictionary of Peace and Philosophy; Enlightenments; Against Sophiaphobia. A full list is available on the IIPSGP website at www.educationaid.net and also on www.lulu.com/iipsgp

  • Other programmes of the Institute include supporting the work to set up an ALL PARTY GROUP FOR PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION in the UK parliament and support for similar efforts in other countries (including initiatives to establish one in the USA and in India and in Pakistan);

  • ORDER OF PEACE POETS, BARDS AND DRUIDS (OPPBD, an international network of poets and bards committed to using their poetic gifts for planetary transformation, which is a member of the Council of British Druid Orders);

  • EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHERS AND HISTORIANS FOR PEACE

  • THE IPSGP SCHOOL OF NONVIOLENCE

  • EUROPAEN  (EUROPEAN PAGAN ACADEMIC AND EDUCATION NETWORK)

    • (holding a conference in Rhos Gallt, Llanerfyl. Powys, Wales SY21 0ER on Saturday July 19, 2009) the Stonehenge Eisteddfod (which meets annually in Amesbury, Wiltshire on June 21st).  

    The main ongoing work of the Institute is to continue playing its part in laying the intellectual, ethical and educational foundations of a sustainable, global civilisation based on peace and justice. Your contribution towards  IIPSGP's programmes of work is invited and your completed membership application will be warmly welcomed. Institute members may get involved in any or all of these above projects. Together, we can do what is impossible alone, in a world in increasing danger and need. Our focus is on finding together the positive solutions to our global crisis. We ALREADY have contacts and members all over the planet and seek to build further the foundations of a vibrant, multifaith, multicultural, and peaceful global civilisation based on the wisdom found within all faiths, all cultures, and all traditions.  We strongly believe in the possibility of transforming our world based on fear, hatred, illusion, greed, injustice, ignorance and violence, into a world based on peace, justice, wisdom, love and generosity – please join us in this vital work. Your support, membership and contributions are most welcome.

     

    IIPSGP WINTER 2008/2009 NEWSLETTER

    Click here to download the IIPSGP WINTER 2008/2009 NEWSLETTER in pdf format, 123 KBytes
    (right-click and choose "Save As ..." to download it)

    Download previous NEWSLETTERS :- 2003 2003w 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

    Click here to download IIPSGP MEMBERSHIP FORM >>  MSWord Doc   HTML form
    top of the page