Applied Conflict Transformation Studies - ACTS

01/10/2026

25/09/2026

Practitioners of Conflict Transformation need to read a movement's full arc - the breakthrough to everything that has to happen after. Students traced different moments in Bangladesh's history, asking the same question of each: what the years after actually demand and what that means for the work still ahead.

That question carries directly into how students see their own contexts, from Nepal to Timor-Leste to movements much closer to home. A breakthrough is rarely the hard part. What comes after is.

17/09/2026

Understanding a context takes more than information. It takes the discipline to notice what is unfamiliar without rushing to explain it away, which is exactly what students practiced in the Nepal grounding session - paying attention to what resonated from their own contexts and holding back conclusions until they had earned themselves.

Grateful for Ramji Neupane's presence and expertise in opening this space.

12/09/2026

Practitioners meeting practitioners, at different points on the same road. That was Kathmandu.

Students further along in the ACTS journey sat beside those just beginning, sharing a learning space built around where each of them stood on their own path. Nepal did not sit quietly in the background. It was part of the teaching, its own ongoing journey of transformation present in every conversation in the room.

Photos and reflections from our residential module in Kathmandu, mid-August 2026.

09/09/2026

Two new journal articles on conflict transformation in Asia published this month in the Melbourne Asia Review (Asia Institute, University of Melbourne), both drawn from recent ACTS PhD graduates' dissertations.

Dr. Jaya Luintel looks at what it takes to make survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in Nepal actually safer, not just heard, introducing a grounded theory she calls Truth Listening.

Dr. Atikah Nuraini looks at what durable land security for Indigenous communities in Indonesia would require, tracing how colonial-era forestry law still puts them at risk today.

Read Jaya's article:
https://www.melbourneasiareview.edu.au/transitional-justice-survivor-defined-knowledge-action-nepal/

Read Atikah's article: https://www.melbourneasiareview.edu.au/transforming-indigenous-forest-conflicts-indonesia-peace-oriented-policy/

How can Nepal build institutions capable of supporting women survivors of conflict-related sexual violence? Read more.

04/09/2026

📢Are you a peace practitioner ready to deepen your practice? Applications for the 2027 Applied Conflict Transformation Studies (ACTS) MA Programme intake are now open.

🎓ACTS is a two-year postgraduate programme for experienced peace practitioners across the Asia-Pacific. Rooted in Action Research and Transformative Peace Leadership, the programme brings together practitioners from across the region to deepen their practice, challenge their assumptions, and generate knowledge from their own conflict contexts.

🎯Application deadline: 30 November 2026.

ℹ️For more information: https://ln.run/b8SKc
✍️Apply here: https://ln.run/AaCke

📧Or email us at [email protected]

27/08/2026

Congratulations, Dr. Jaya Luintel. 🎉🎓

Steady, patient work, years of it, sitting with survivors and treating listening as its own form of justice and not just a step toward it. What happens in one relationship, done with enough care, becomes a pattern that can hold much more. ACTS is built for exactly this, practitioners turning their own practice into theory, then sending it back out to strengthen the work itself. Jaya's model, feminist and listening-centered, grounded in healing, empowerment, and justice, is built to travel, to be useful to others doing this work in Nepal and beyond.

Onwards for what this grounded theory makes possible next. 🎓

07/07/2026

🌿 Rooted & Rising: Emergent Paths to Peace

We are excited to announce the 14th Asian Peace Practitioners Research Conference (PPRC), bringing together peace practitioners and researchers from across Asia for two days of exchange, reflection, and collective learning.

This year, we explore what it means to stay grounded in our work while continuing to grow - drawing on lived experience, honest critique, and grounded practice to sharpen how we respond to today's complex peace and conflict realities.

📅 8-9 December 2026
📍 Siem Reap, Cambodia

Scan the QR code on our flyer or register via the link below. We look forward to seeing you there.
https://forms.gle/w7REKMCAjXSK6AcV7

30/05/2026

Two years of bringing your whole self, your context, your peacework, into a learning space and in the peacebuilding community. That’s what this degree represents.

Bunrithy Lav represented his cohort at Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia’s 12th Commencement. Every one of them graduated with honors.

To Bunrithy and the whole cohort: Congratulations!

26/05/2026

ACTS approaches identity as central to understanding conflict and transformation, recognising how narratives, belonging and lived experience shape the way people relate to one another and to conflict itself.