Purpose and Vision
Since its establishment in 2018, the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) has built a dynamic global academic network committed to advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Building on this momentum, the SDG16 Hub will enter a new chapter from 2025 to 2027, under the leadership of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, serving as Hub Chair.
Message from Dean Özerdem upon the launch of the initiative
We’ve Officially Launched Our UNAI SDG16 Hub Chair at the Carter School!
Yesterday, as part of our Fall 2025 Peace Week, we proudly hosted the Official Launch of the UNAI SDG16 Hub Chair on Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions. This event marked a milestone in our ongoing commitment to advancing global peace and justice through research, teaching, and public engagement.
I’m deeply grateful to all who contributed their insights and support — especially President Kanat Kozhakhmet and Algeria Raimzhanova of Narxoz University (Vice Chair for Teaching), Vice Rector Juan Carlos Sainz-Borgo of University for Peace (UPEACE) - UN Mandated (Vice Chair for Public Outreach), as well as Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford (Vice Chair for Research) and my colleagues at Mason's Institute for a Sustainable Earth, Dr. Leah Nichols and Dr. Julianna Gwiszcz. Your participation underscored the power of collaboration across institutions and continents.
We’re excited to take this momentum forward and work together as an SDG16 Hub team to enable a genuinely transformational process in peacebuilding, justice, and strong institutions worldwide.
🔗 Read more about Fall 2025 Peace Week here.
Thank you again to everyone who joined us — in person or in spirit — for helping launch this new chapter.
Together, we’re building bridges and shaping the future of peace, justice, and strong institutions.
- Dean Alpaslan Özerdem
In this new phase, the Carter School will collaborate closely with three distinguished institutions serving as Vice Chairs:
Together, this partnership aims to strengthen the global role of academia in achieving SDG16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. By facilitating collaboration among scholars, practitioners, students, and policymakers, the SDG16 Hub seeks to accelerate the translation of research into policy, innovation into practice, and theory into real-world impact.
Our mission is to serve as a platform, connector, and enabler, amplifying the voices of early-career scholars and creating inclusive, participatory spaces to rethink and advance global efforts on SDG16.
Flagship Programs and Activities
News and Events
United Nations Academic Impact Appoints George Mason University as New United Nations Academic Impact Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Hub Chair for SDG 16
Carter School News, January 23, 2025
The Carter School named a United Nations Academic Impact Sustainable Development Goal Hub Chair
George Mason University News, January 15, 2025
Bridging the UN with Young Scholars (Online Forum)
The SDG16 Hub will host an annual online forum that brings together young scholars and UN representatives working on peace, justice, and institution-building. This interactive event will serve as a mutual learning space for students and early-career researchers to engage directly with UN actors, understand institutional priorities, and offer their own insights.
Through interactive sessions, panel discussions, and breakout rooms, participants will engage in meaningful dialogue across regions and disciplines. The goal is to collectively critique, challenge, and co-create ideas that bridge the academic and policy worlds, deepening the relevance and inclusivity of SDG16 work as well as focusing on career paths for scholar/practitioners.
Global Repository for SDG16-Related Curricula
Universities around the world offer diverse and context-specific courses related to SDG16, yet knowledge exchange across these programs remains limited. The Hub will create a global resource website featuring curated course descriptions focused on peace, justice, and institutional resilience.
The repository will:
- Elevate local and non-Western approaches,
- Enable academic and policy communities to learn from each other, and
- Encourage curricular innovation and decolonization of peace and governance education.
This searchable repository will respect intellectual property by excluding full syllabi, while highlighting themes, objectives, and regional framing.
Annual Online SDG16 Conference
To ensure widespread accessibility, the SDG16 Hub will host an annual international two-day virtual conference. This event will bring together faculty, students, civil society leaders, and policy actors from across the globe, with an emphasis on inclusion of participants from traditionally underrepresented regions.
The conference will feature:
- Keynotes by UN and global thought leaders
- Thematic academic panels
- Practitioner roundtables
- Emerging scholar presentations
- Interactive dialogues and networking spaces
The first conference will be organized during the Carter School’s Peace Week, leveraging the School’s institutional capacity and event infrastructure to ensure a successful launch.
Regional Workshops and Conferences
To complement global programming with local engagement, the Hub will host quarterly regional workshops, co-organized with each Vice Chair. These rotating events will be co-hosted with universities, civil society actors, and public institutions across different regions.
Objectives include:
- Showcasing work by local scholars and practitioners
- Enabling peer learning and cross-regional exchange
- Generating regionally informed policy briefs and collaborative outputs
These workshops will deepen engagement across the Hub institutions and support a decentralized, sustainable model of academic outreach.
Student-Led Symposium on SDG16
To foster student leadership in shaping global conversations on peace and justice, the Hub will launch an annual Student-Led SDG16 Symposium. Organized entirely by students from participating institutions, the symposium will feature:
- Student research presentations
- Creative and media-based advocacy projects
- Dialogue sessions on emerging global and local issues
- Career development and workforce pathway sessions
By providing an intergenerational platform, the symposium aims to elevate youth leadership and ensure that new voices actively shape the future of peacebuilding and institutional resilience.
Photo Credits
- Narxoz University: Photo provided by Narxoz University under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license via Wikimedia.
- Oxford University: Shaun Iwasawa via Pexels.
- University for Peace: By Photo taken by Rachel Kutzley - Transfered from en.wikipedia, Public Domain.
