For the fourth year running, the State of Peace Youth Academy, organized by the European Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in cooperation with the Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC), has brought together young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro with a goal of strengthening dialogue, mutual understanding and lasting peace.
In a region where history is so often told as competing, mutually exclusive stories, the fourth “State of Peace” Youth Academy set out to test a different premise: that different experiences of the past don't have to produce separate futures.
About 40 young people gathered for the fifth Peace Festival, organized by the Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC) to discuss and learn about peacebuilding through inclusive memorialization, art, and activities designed to promote critical thinking and respect for multiculturalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
Three decades after the violent conflicts that claimed thousands of lives and profoundly shaped those who survived, a central question remains across the Western Balkans: how can the voices, experiences, and needs of those most affected be placed at the center of policy and societal action?
Identity-based violence and its causes continue to be a widespread issue throughout the Western Balkans, even thirty years after the end of the wars in the 1990s.
On March 3 and 4, 2026, representatives of 25 civil society and international organizations converged on Europe House in Podgorica, Montenegro, for the inaugural Western Balkans Peace Forum (WBPF), organized by the Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC) with its partners.