Recipient organisationQueen's University BelfastSource-published name: The Queen's University of Belfast
Funding£1.7M
PeriodJul 2017 — Jun 2021
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
A preschool programme originally designed to promote respect for diversity in Northern Ireland is now being adapted for conflict-affected communities in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. This matters because early childhood is a critical window for shaping attitudes toward others, yet very few evidence-based interventions exist that explicitly use early childhood development (ECD) to build peace in divided societies. Most peacebuilding efforts focus on older children or adults, missing the opportunity to foster tolerance and social cohesion from the start. If this research succeeds, it could provide a rigorously tested, scalable model for integrating peacebuilding into routine preschool and community playgroup settings. That would give governments and NGOs in fragile states a concrete, non-military tool for reducing intergroup hostility before it becomes entrenched. The work builds directly on a decade of randomised controlled trials in Northern Ireland, so the approach is grounded in real outcomes rather than theory. This is applied social science with a clear pathway to policy—if the adapted programmes work, they could reshape how international donors invest in both ECD and conflict prevention.
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1) STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES OF QUEEN’S AND EXISTING STRENGTHS The current institutional research strategy for Queen’s (2016-2021) presents an ambitious plan to promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and align academic and research staff through the creation and strategic prioritisation of large-scale institutes and centres to tackle global challenges.[1] One such centre is the Centre for Evidence and Social Innovation (CESI) that is an applied social science research centre aligning the research activities of just under 100 academic, research and support staff from across the university (see: http://www.qub.ac.uk/cesi). CESI has particular expertise in working with a wide range of multi-sectoral stakeholders and communities to develop and evaluate interventions in social care, education and public health, particularly using randomised controlled trials (RCTs). It is currently developing innovative, long-term partnerships with local communities in West Belfast to work together to begin thinking differently about how this work is taken forward. To date, CESI has successfully attracted over £20m in external research funding and has completed or is due to complete over 50 RCTs. It also has a strong track record in relation to evidence synthesis and has recently been approved to establish and host the first national centre for the Campbell Collaboration for the UK and Ireland, due to be launched in June 2017. CESI has a specific emphasis on early intervention and prevention and particular expertise in working in partnership with local providers to develop and evaluate ECD programmes; particularly those focused on social and emotional development and involving either direct parental support and/or delivered through community playgroups and preschools. One area of work, led by the Director of CESI and the Director of this proposed Research Group, has focused on the development of a multi-component preschool peacebuilding programme to promote respect for diversity and contribute to peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. This has involved a 10-year programme of work flowing from early primary research through to the formative evaluation of pilot programmes and then the summative evaluation of an ECD programme taken to scale in Northern Ireland. This research formed the basis for a highly-rated impact case study submitted to UoA25 (Education) in REF2014.[2] It has also inspired efforts to adapt and apply the programme in several countries affected by divisions and conflict, including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, two of the proposed partner countries for this Research Group. 2) EXISTING PARTNERSHIPS AND STRATEGIES Queen’s University Belfast, in partnership with Early Years – The Organisation for Young Children (Northern Ireland) –pioneered the development of the preschool peacebuilding programme for Northern Ireland described above. This has, in turn, inspired the establishment of the International Networking Group on Peacebuilding with Young Children led by Early Years and the International Centre for Education and Human Development in Colombia (CINDE). This current Network includes ECD specialists and organisations from a number of conflict-affected countries including: Colombia, Croatia, El Savador, Ethiopia, Iraq, Israel, Kosovo, Nepal, South Africa and West Bank and Gaza Strip. As part of the early development of this International Networking Group, Queen’s was instrumental in leading the development of its signature publication on ECD and peacebuilding: ‘From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Power of Early Childhood Initiatives – Lessons from Around the World’.[3] Alongside the International Networking Group, Queen’s also led the establishment of a parallel and related research network: Una – The Global Learning Initiative on Children and Ethnic Diversity, that drew together 80 academics and practitioners in ECD from 33 different countries (see: http://www.unaglobal.org). More recently, in 2013, UNICEF with a range of global p
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