Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP)

UCDP Research Coordinator Therese Pettersson has made this year’s Clarivate’s “Highly Cited Researchers” list, which covers the most cited researchers worldwide over the past decade. This is probably the first time a researcher from our department has managed this.

We congratulate Therese and the entire Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) team on this impressive achievement!

Swedish higher education institutions have 69 researchers on the list. Five of them are employed at Uppsala University. Out of the included Swedish researchers, six are in the social sciences.

The Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, where we are based, is forced to rebuild its Facebook following from scratch.
Please help them find their previous audience as well as new audiences by liking and following. If you like our content, we think you will enjoy theirs too.

We’re back! Almost two years ago, our account was suddenly disabled. After two years of fruitless attempts to restore it, we’ve decided it’s time to start fresh.

On this channel, we will be sharing about our research, outreach and collaboration as well as our day-to-day at the department.
While going from 9k+ followers to zero feels tough, we are excited about what lies ahead. Your reactions and shares are especially valuable at this early stage of rebuilding – thank you for helping out.

If you are sceptical regarding the authenticity of this account (which you should be), please head to our website pcr.uu.se and navigate to the bottom of the page, where you can find links to all our social media channels, including this one.

A new article by UCDP's Magnus Öberg and Mert Can Yilmaz in Research & Politics reveals that differences between major conflict datasets aren't driven by sourcing strategies or inclusion thresholds as previously claimed.

Some key findings:
- Most differences stem from how projects handle ambiguity & uncertainty in poor information environments.
- Auxiliary coding rules (e.g., counting "people killed" as 2 vs 10 fatalities) explain 90%+ of differences in some cases.
- Source evaluation standards matter more than sourcing strategies.
- Stable definitions are essential for reliable measurement, not a flaw.

Read the article:

Measurement issues in conflict event data: Addressing some misconceptions about what drives differences between human-coded event datasets - Magnus Öberg, Mert Can Yilmaz, 2025 Clionadh Raleigh, Roudabeh Kishi, and Andrew Linke recently compared their own Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset (ACLED) to three other conflict event ...

Want to know more about conflict deaths across the world? Our World in Data has now updated their visuals with the latest data from UCDP. https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace

The war in Gaza features one of the highest civilian-to-combatant death ratios of any modern conflict. UCDP's Mert Can Yilmaz elaborates on this in Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish)

Svensk kartläggning: Minst 29 000 civila har dödats i Gazakriget Sedan den 7 oktober 2023 har minst 29 000 civila dödats i väpnade attacker i Israel och de ockuperade palestinska områdena.

New UCDP data release! In the 2024 update from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) organised violence remained alarmingly high, with 61 state-based conflicts and nearly 160,000 recorded fatalities.

The full analysis by Shawn Davies, Therése Pettersson, Margareta Sollenberg and Magnus Öberg (all Uppsala University) is open access in Journal of Peace Research – read it here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00223433251345636

What does the latest data say about global conflict trends?

UCDP’s Therese Pettersson joined the launch of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Conflict Trends Report, presenting the most recent findings from UCDP that underpin the report.

Watch the event here: https://youtu.be/kJjY8xRXK_k
Photo: Kia Michaelsen

Ökat våld och antal konflikter i världen! För dig som vill läsa om UCDP:s senaste data på svenska diskuterar Therese Pettersson de senaste trenderna i konfliktdatan i Dagens Nyheter

Rapport: Svårare att avgöra om dödsoffer är civila eller stridande Det har blivit allt svårare att avgöra om dödsfall i konflikter är civila eller stridande, visar en ny rapport.

New data from UCDP shows the highest number of active conflicts ever recorded, press release found here:

UCDP: Sharp increase in conflicts and wars The number of armed conflicts in the world reached a historic high in 2024. This is shown by new data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) at Uppsala University. Despite a marginal decrease in total fatalities, targeted violence against civilians increased significantly.

DEMSCORE version 5.0 includes additional datasets from Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP): The Cities and Armed Conflict Events (CACE), Deadly Electoral Conflict dataset (DECO), and the Ethnic One-Sided Violence (EOSV) Dataset.

The Cities and Armed Conflict Events (CACE) dataset is an extension of the UCDP-GED, which covers individual events of organized violence (phenomena of lethal violence occurring at a given time and place). The CACE extension provides a systematic coding of whether these armed conflict events took place in cities.

The Deadly Electoral Conflict dataset (DECO) is a global, geo-referenced event dataset, based on UCDP data, identifying electoral violence with lethal outcomes from 1989 to 2017.

The Ethnic One-Sided Violence (EOSV) Dataset is an actor-year dataset with information on the ethnic identity of civilian victims of direct and deliberate killings by state and non-state actors from 1989 to 2013. The dataset is based on the UCDP One-Sided Violence Dataset version 1.4-2014.

Explore at https://www.demscore.se/data/ and
https://www.demscore.se/data/static-datasets/ucdp-views-static-datasets/

provides free access to harmonized data from several of the world’s largest datasets on , , , , , and .

UCDP's project leader, Therese Pettersson, recently shared her thoughts with Finnish Radio Yle Vega on conflict trends, civilian casualties, and the challenging nature of working in the field of violence and death.

Listen in for a deeper understanding of the human cost of conflict and what it takes to stay focused on the bigger picture while navigating this difficult work. (In Swedish)

🔗https://arenan.yle.fi/poddar/1-73638442

"Världsläget är mörkt" | Vega i dag I Uppsala sitter ett 15-tal personer och följer med och gör statistik över allt organiserat, väpnat våld i världen. En av de som jobbar där är Finlandsbördiga Therese Pettersson. Redaktör Jessica Morney.