From Knowledge to Negotiation: Making Expertise Usable in Mediation

Peace mediation and national dialogues benefit from a growing body of research, comparative experiences, and expert knowledge. Yet, much of this expertise remains underused in practice, while mediation and negotiation practices are not always translated back into academic and policy knowledge. Why does relevant knowledge so often fail to inform real-time decision-making and vice versa? 

This workshop seeks to explore the link between knowledge production and peace negotiations, focusing more specifically on the conditions that can make research and expertise more relevant and practically usable in mediation settings. In such tense and sensitive contexts, stakeholders indeed face high political pressure, limited time and low trust, which render the uptake of external insights challenging. 

Bringing together practitioners and researchers with expertise on recent conflict situations, the session will invite the participants to discuss and reflect on the types of knowledge produced and what counts as expertise as well as how this knowledge and expertise can be translated into accessible, credible and actionable formats. 

Through group discussions, the workshop will invite participants to explore concrete approaches and to address key tensions. The session eventually aims to identify practical ways to bridge the gap between knowledge and action in contemporary peace processes.