“By peace we mean the capacity to transform conflicts with empathy, without violence, and creatively – a never-ending process.” - John Galtung
By Peace Hero Museum Vienna
Prof. Johan Galtung was born in 1930 in Oslo, Norway. He completed his degree in Mathematics, and later a PhD in Sociology, at the University of Oslo, and has received 10 honorary degrees from different universities around the world.
His motivation for Peace Studies was that there weren’t any books written on peace in Helsinki when he was studying there in 1951. On the other hand, there were thousands of books on war and military. He found that Peace Studies was no-where to be found in the academic environment and so decided to compensate these shortcomings by creating Peace Studies.
Galtung is regarded as the “Father of Peace Studies” as he has taken major steps to strengthen peace through his academic activities. He has published more than 160 books, and 1,600 articles on peace issues.
He is the founder of different peace centers including the Peace Research Institute Oslo in 1959, the Journal of Peace Research in 1964, and TRANSCEND in 1993, which is a global non-profit network for Peace. He also founded the world’s first online peace university. He assisted the establishment of other peace centers in different countries, and served as a professor of Peace Studies in different universities in the US, Norway, Germany, France, Serbia, Chile, Argentina, Japan, Egypt, and Spain. Since 2014, he is serving as a professor of Global Peace at the International Islamic University Malaysia.
Galtung also has mediated international conflicts, such as the American racial conflict on desegregating schools in Virginia USA, and the peace agreement between Ecuador and Peru, which could prevent the outbreak of war.