Would you like to learn more about unarmed civilian protection and community self-protection, and how it is implemented around the world?
This page contains recordings from our past events. We also have a separate page for recordings of our research methods training workshops.
Creating Safer Space: A Celebration!
In March 2025, the Creating Safer Space network held a Celebration event, reflecting on the last five years, sharing our work, and looking ahead.
Creating Safer Space Research Café: UCP and Abolition
In November 2024, Dr Raquel da Silva (University of Coimbra) and Prof Nerve Macaspac (City University of New York) presented their research on UCP and Abolition.
WOW Film Festival: ‘Stories of Unarmed Civilian Protection’ Panel Discussion
In March 2024, Creating Safer Space participated in the WOW Film Festival. We showed films from our projects related to UCP, and Berit Bliesemann de Guevara (Creating Safer Space Principal Investigator), Marwan Darwaish (Principal Investigator of Creating Safer Space project ‘Safety and dignity: Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills’) and Piergiuseppe Parisi (Principal Investigator of Creating Safer Space project ‘Ritualising’ protection in conflict’) participated in the Panel Discussion. More information about our participation in the WOW Film Festival is available here.
WOW Film Festival: ‘Water Conflicts’ Panel Discussion
In March 2024, Creating Safer Space participated in the WOW Film Festival. We showed films from our projects related to ‘Water Conflicts’, and Berit Bliesemann de Guevara (Creating Safer Space Principal Investigator) and Marwan Darwaish (Principal Investigator of Creating Safer Space project ‘Safety and dignity: Enhancing unarmed civilian protection amongst Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills’) participated in the Panel Discussion. More information about our participation in the WOW Film Festival is available here.
Research Café: Top Tips for Publishing in Academic Journals
In October 2023, Dr Sukanya Podder drew upon her experience as Deputy Editor of the academic journal Civil Wars to explain how the publishing process works, and to share some top tips for publishing in academic journals.
Research Café: The Centrality of Relationships to Nonviolence and UCP
Louise Ridden and Felicity Gray present their research on the Unarmed Civilian Protection in theory and in practice, and the similarities and differences they found in the work. More information about their research is available here:
Felicity Gray, “Protection as connection: feminist relational theory and protecting civilians from violence in South Sudan”: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449626.2022.2052152
Louise Ridden, “The Temporal and Embodied Construction of Space and UCP”, chapter in this book:
https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/unarmed-civilian-protection
Louise Ridden and Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, “Unarmed civilian protection”:
https://odihpn.org/publication/unarmed-civilian-protection
Research Café: Writing a Successful Grant Application
In September 2022, Prof. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Prof. Beatriz Arias lead a Panel Discussion on how to write a successful grant application. The Panel consisted of researchers who successfully applied for Creating Safer Space research grants in our recent funding competition. Juan Mario Díaz and Simon Rushton (University of Sheffield, UK) share their experiences of writing a successful Large Grant application on “Community strategies for Unarmed Civilian Protection in South-West Colombia: local experiences and lessons learned”. Astrid Torres Ramírez and Véronique Draily (Corporación Jurídica Libertad, Colombia) share their experiences of writing a successful Small Grant application on “The Social Process of Guarantees of Antioquia, Colombia, an experience of unarmed civil protection with indigenous and peasant communities of Bajo Cauca”.
Research Café: Strategies for Community Protection and dealing with Election Violence
In the July 2022 Creating Safer Space research café, Mr Thiago Wolfer and his team at Nonviolent Peaceforce South Sudan discussed how UCP approaches that have been used to prevent violence in South Sudan could be adapted and implemented in dealing with election violence, looking at Kenya in particular and how it applies to other areas.
Top Tips on how to write a successful grant application
In June 2022, drawing upon key insights from the Creating Safer Space funding competition, Prof. Berit Bliesemann de Guevara (Aberystwyth University, UK), Prof. Rachel Julian (Leeds Beckett University, UK) and Prof. Beatriz Arias (University of Antioquia, Colombia) provided some top tips on how to write a successful grant application. There is also a recording of the Spanish language event.
Research Café: UCP, Civil Resistance, and Human Rights Defence
In the January 2022 Creating Safer Space research café, Dr Christine Schweitzer (BSV – Federation for Social Defense, and Institute for Peace Work and Nonviolent Conflict Transformation, Germany) introduced a discussion on the topic: What is Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP)? How does it relate to or differ from civil resistance and human rights defence?