We are pleased to invite you to our annual security conference, the Czech Security Forum 2024, which is organized by the Institute of International Relations Prague (IIR) and Peace Research Center Prague (PRCP). The event will take place on October 25, 2024 at Goethe-Institut Prague.

We are proud to announce that our director Michal Smetana has been awarded a five-year ERC Starting Grant of 1.5 million EUR for his project ‘Microfoundations of Collective Defence’, which will utilise advanced methods in experimental political science, international relations and political psychology to explore the public opinion in military alliances across key NATO member states.

We are pleased to welcome two new members from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, to our team at PRCP! Klára Smitková is joining as our new Office Manager while Müberra Dinler is our new postdoctoral researcher who focuses on China and Russia's support of stigmatized actors in the Middle East. Welcome!

In this publication, Michal Smetana, Marek Vranka and Ondřej Rosendorf provide empirical evidence for the hypothesis that there are substantial elite-public gaps in support for the military use of nuclear and chemical weapons. These findings strongly contribute to the ongoing academic debate on the significance of nuclear and chemical weapon ‘taboos’ in global politics.

We are happy to invite you to the official book launch of Cyber Sovereignty: The Future of Governance in Cyberspace, written by our postdoctoral researcher Lucie Kadlecová. Please do not forget to register via this form.

Our postdoctoral researcher Lucie Kadlecová is publishing her new book Cyber Sovereignty: The Future of Governance in Cyberspace. The book discusses the existence of sovereignty in cyberspace and analyzes the most advanced translatlantic cases of state sovereignty in cyberspace –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ the Netherlands, the US, Estonia and Turkey.

We are happy to publish the new report called Czech People and Israel 2023-2024 in collaboration with the Herzl Center for Israeli Studies!

The report compares public opinion surveys from January 2023 and January 2024, as well as a survey of political elites at the turn of 2022-2023. Key findings reveal a notable increase in Czech public’s rise in support for recognizing Palestine as an independent state, alongside a distinct polarization in opinions regarding the responsibilities in the conflict.

We are happy to announce that our PEACE Action project proposal has been awarded the prestigious EU Cost Action Grant. We are excited to work on this project in collaboration with a wide network of peace and conflict research centers and scholars throughout Europe!