INCORE International Advisory Group (IIAG)

The INCORE International Advisory Board (IIAG) is a group of prominent global figures active in peace and conflict research, practice and policymaking. The IIAG consists of current and former politicians, statesmen and stateswomen, academics, practitioners and others with an active role in peace and conflict issues.

The IIAG advises INCORE on its role in peace and conflict research in Northern Ireland and beyond. The IIAG contributes to the shaping of INCORE’s research, training and best practice agenda – and advises on how best to advance INCORE findings in practice.

• Professor Ramesh Thakur, Senior Vice Rector, Peace and Governance United Nations University. http://www.unu.edu/png.html . Professor Thakur was professor at the University of Otago from 1980 to 1995, and then head of the Peace Research Centre at the Australian National University.
  
• Sir Marrack Goulding, has, since 1997, been Warden of St Antony's College, Oxford, a graduate college which specializes in international studies. Previously, he served as an Under-Secretary-General in the United Nations Secretariat in New York: from 1986 to 1993 he was in charge of the UN's peacekeeping operations, which quintupled in size following the end of the Cold War; and from 1993 to 1997 he was head of the Secretariat's Political Affairs Department. Before joining the UN, he served for 27 years in the British Diplomatic Service, mainly in the Middle East but also in Africa and in the British delegation to the UN. His last diplomatic post was Ambassador to Angola (1983-1985). His publications include a memoir of his peacekeeping days, Peacemonger, which was published by John Murray in 2002 and Johns Hopkins UP in 2003.
  
• Professor Ian McAllister. Currently Professor in the Research School of Social Sciences, Institute of Advanced Studies, The Australian National University.
  
• Maurice Hayes. Member of Seanad Eireann (Independent); a Member of Senate, Queens University Belfast; Chairman National Forum on Europe; Member, Royal Irish Academy; Governor, Linenhall Library, Belfast; Chairman, Ireland Funds, Columnist, Irish Independent.
  
• Professor Jon van Til. Professor of Urban Studies and Community Planning at Rutgers University, Camden. Incoming Senior Fulbright Scholar to University of Ulster (INCORE & Centre for Voluntary Action Studies). Author of Growing Civil Society - See http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/books/0-253-33715-1.shtml. Also see http://www.incore.ulster.ac.uk/about/specialist/cvas
  
• Dr Nancy Soderberg. Currently Vice-President (Multilateral Affairs) - International Crisis Group - http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm . From 1993-97, Ms. Soderberg served as the third ranking official of the National Security Council at the White House, including as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. From 1997 to 2001, she was Alternate Representative to the United Nations as a Presidential Appointee, with the rank of Ambassador.
  
• Dekha Ibrahim Abdi. Dekha Ibrahim is a member of the Board of Directors on The Coexistence Initiative, a Founding member and co-ordinating Secretary of the Wajir Peace and Development Agency and the National Co-ordinator of the Nomadic Pastoralists Development Initiative (Kenya).  She is co-editor of Working with Conflict: Skills and strategies for Action. http://www.respond.org/learning_resources.asp
  
• Geraldine Smyth is a Dominican theologian from Belfast, and working in both Dublin and Belfast as Senior Lecturer at the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin and co-director of the ISE-Mediation Northern Ireland joint research project Partners in Transformation project.
  
• Virginia Gamba is the director of SaferAfrica - http://www.saferafrica.org/ . She was head of the Arms Management Programme of the Institute for Security Studies (1996-2001); director of the Conflict Resolution and Disarmament Project of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research Geneva (1994-96) http://www.unidir.org/ .  
  
• Professor Kevin Boyle is former Director of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. He was Senior Adviser to Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner on Human Rights from September 2001-September 2002. He was also the first Director of the Human Rights Centre at the National University of Ireland, Galway and founding Director of Article 19. http://www2.essex.ac.uk/human_rights_centre/  

 

Former IIAG Members, 1998-2002:

• Professor Bayo Adekanye, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
• Dr Eileen Babbitt, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, United States
• Professor Kevin Boyle, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, United Kingdom
• Dr Maurice Hayes, Ireland Fund and Member of the Irish Senate
• Professor John Hume, Tip O’Neill Chair in Peace Studies and Nobel Peace Prize Winner 1998, Northern Ireland
• Professor John Paul Lederach, Eastern Mennonite University, United State
• Dr Patricia Lewis, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, (UNIDIR), Switzerland
• Colonel Oliver A. K. Macdonald, Permanent Mission of Ireland to the OSCE, Austria
• Professor Elizabeth Meehan, Queen’s University, Northern Ireland
• Professor Rodolpho Stavenhagen, El Colegio de Mexico and Member of UNU Council, Mexico
• Mr Cedric Thornberry, Former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Head of UNPROFOR. Cyprus
• Dr Valery Tishkov, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russia
• Dr Ngaire Woods, Oxford University, United Kingdom

 

We are indebted to our former IIAG members for their support and advice and hope to retain a close association with them.