Salzburg Global Seminar | call for Asia Peace Innovators Forum

Salzburg Global Seminar and The Nippon Foundation (日本財団) are seeking mid-career professionals who have the aspiration and potential to be the next generation of senior leaders in mediating peace and promoting reconciliation. Applicants should be active in promoting peace mediation and reconciliation in diverse sectors including arts and culture.

Peace is key to ensuring Asia’s sustained development and prosperity as the world’s most populous region grows in global geopolitical and economic importance. But despite the region’s rich experience (positive and negative) in mediating peace and promoting reconciliation, the learning exchange between regional, local, and community-driven initiatives has so far been low.

Launching its first workshop on March 5-9, 2020, the Asia Peace Innovators Forum aims to shape long-term peace, stability, and regional cooperation in Asia by building a network of mid-career professionals working in different sectors and countries to exchange knowledge, community-driven approaches, and best practices.

Participants in the Forum will gather at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria to exchange experience and innovation relevant to geopolitics, historical legacies, demographics and migration, climate change, and natural resource management. Fellows will identify lessons for success to be shared broadly via multiple media and will devise plans to seed new projects to advance peace and mitigate conflicts in the countries in which they work.

The Forum will encourage networking between Fellows participating in its first three workshops via an online platform and other collaboration opportunities, and the most promising and most actively engaged Fellows will be selected to take part in follow-up programs to be held in Asia in 2021 and 2022.

Who Should Apply?

Applicants should be active in promoting peace mediation and reconciliation in one of the following sectors:

Civil society, including from religious institutions and philanthropic organizations;
Local public and private sector institutions, including from municipal offices, local government, small businesses, and entrepreneurs;
Media, including journalists, social media influencers, thought-leaders, and public intellectuals;
Education, including teachers, school principals, technical and vocational skills providers, sports trainers, academics, and museum directors; and
Arts and culture, including artists and cultural innovators, who serve as creative practitioners and designers across disciplines to harness the transformative power of the arts for inclusive societal change.

One-fifth of the Fellows will be selected from each of the following geographies:

Myanmar;
South Thailand;
Sri Lanka;
Other countries in South and East Asia; and
The rest of the world.

Each country/regional grouping will include a cross-sectoral, gender-balanced mix of Fellows. Read the application requirements in full on the program page, which is available here.

The deadline for applications is October 31, 2019.