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Good morning. Good morning, everyone. And a very warm welcome to the conference today.

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I hope you enjoyed last night those many of you who were there. It seems to have been a very good opening for our conference.

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A special welcome to those who come from far to join us and to our speakers.

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Scott has come all the way from the states. Some of you have flown in from different parts of the world.

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We have people from Jerusalem, Johannesburg. It's great to see all of you.

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Please feel very welcome here. The purpose of this conference.

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Is to showcase what happens when you make peace. The focus and bring people from different disciplines to pool ideas and expertise.

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It's fully supported by the chancellor of Oxford University and read out his message.

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Chris Patten says, I'm sorry, I cannot be with you for your important conference.

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I will be in the USA as part of our appeal activities for the university.

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Sometimes when you read the newspaper headlines, it appears that the world is becoming more and more violent.

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The truth is rather different. The number of serious conflicts has fallen over the last half century.

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And we have become better at preventing and resolving conflict. Jonathan, Powell's presence at your conference is an example of that.

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But as I know from my work as co-chair of the International Crisis Group,

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there is much more that we could do to resolve conflicts and avoid the conditions which helped produce and sustain them.

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We need to be much more creative and effective in joining the dots in diplomacy and security policy.

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Paul Collier, for example, has done groundbreaking work on the relationship between conflict and poverty.

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We have here this morning Dr. Angka Hoffler, who will be speaking in in substitution for Paul Collier.

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But I'm sure on exactly the same level. Thank you.

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Thank you very much for coming.

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Paul has been unable to join us because he is adopting two children and they are spending their first weekend with his family this weekend.

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And so he has very kindly sent Dr. Hoffler to be with us instead.

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But to continue, Chris, patterns message.

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I am sure that working across academic disciplines will help to open up, provide input to governmental and NGO policymaking in this crucial area.

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This seems to me especially important at the beginning of a much tougher period economically around the world.

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And when we were thinking about a missions mission statement for this conference,

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we came up with the statement that goes after Chris Patten's message on your programmes, and I just read out the final paragraph of that.

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The object of today's conference is to gather scholars from disciplines across

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the university and beyond with the aim of focussing on the study of peace,

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exploring some of its depths and its potential as an interdisciplinary focus should this experience prove creative.

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It is hopes that further initiatives will emerge both within and across disciplines in Oxford University during the course of today.

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We want to capture some ideas for going forward.

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Please, will everyone have in mind this question for us here in Oxford and indeed, perhaps for you where you are?

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How can we advance the serious study of peace here and wherever you are?

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Can we think of new course offerings within existing degree courses or new courses, new institutes, new centres, new posts, new seminars?

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What practically can we do to advance the study of peace, peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace building here and elsewhere?

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We hope to capture some ideas in the final session and a continuing group.

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We'll be discussing and carrying things forward. And if you'd like to be in that continuing process, you are very welcome.

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Please speak to any of us with the kind of orange surround to our names.

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I'm Liz Karmichael. I'm here. I'm the chaplain and tutor in theology and have experience of peacemaking in southern Africa in particular.

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And I'm interested in the Middle East that any of us with this orange surround, please speak,

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give your name and contacts and we'll be in contact with you to help to carry things forward here.

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A little bit of housekeeping. Plenaries are here this morning, and the final plenary lunch will be in the reception room where you had coffee.

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It's a sandwich lunch.

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The breakout sessions in the afternoon will be here and in the reception room where you have the coffee and lunch and in the lock in room,

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which is very close, and you have labels, notices and help us to help you to find the lock in room.

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We've asked you to sign up for sessions. You can indeed change your mind.

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But the only critical thing is that we can't have more than 40 people in the locking room.

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Other places are fine for as many as we'd like to come.

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Toilets are in that direction. There are several sets of them in this building.

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Helpers have pink surrounds on their badges. The organisers have orange ones.

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Please keep all valuables with you. We have had things pinched from these rooms.

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So unfortunately, nowhere is quite safe just to dump stuff.

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So please keep anything valuable with you. I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that in the session, which is chaired by Jason Hart,

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he has been put down as operating from the Refugees Study Centre.

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Well, he doesn't actually teach language to refugees in a study centre.

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He is at the Refugee Studies Centre.

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So please note that it's an offshoot of Queens of the House, the Department of International Development in Oxford.

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So Refugees Refugees Studies Centre at one.

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Advertize speaker is not able to be with us. She is in that session, chaired by Jason Hart.

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Elizabeth Becker, unfortunately, has hurt her back and was not allowed to fly from the states to be with us today by her doctors.

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But the session will be a very full one, I think, even lacking that paper on Guatemala.

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So without more or do let me introduce our first speaker this morning.

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Our first keynote speech comes from Professor Scott Appleby, the director of the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

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The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies Professor Appleby examines

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the roots of religious violence and the potential of religious peace building.

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He has written a magisterial tome on that, on both aspects, conflict and peace building called The Ambivalence of the Sacred.

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He has also taken part in a large study on fundamentalism, resulting in five volumes of the fundamentalism project.

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And he is director of the Kroc Institute now. And we'll speak this morning on strategic peace building for the 21st century.

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Scott, thank you very much for being with us. We look forward to. Thank you.