Day 2 - Closing

16:30–17:00 

Closing: For the Future of Peace Research

• Elvan Isikozlu, Carina Yıldırım-Schlüsing, Marc von Boemcken, bicc

Concluding Remarks by

• Berivan Aymaz, Vice-President of the Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia (tbc)

Our Panelists

Elvan Isikozlu

Elvan Isikozlu took on the role of Head of Advice & Scientific Transfer at bicc in 2023 after serving as bicc’s Scientific Officer for Quality Assurance & Organisational Development from 2021–2023. She began her professional career in 2001 at the largest non-profit youth organisation in Canada (Junior Achievement) and worked for the Mine Action Unit at Global Affairs Canada prior to coming to bicc in 2006. Elvan earned a Bachelor of Arts and Science from a interdisciplinary program at McMaster University, with a combined Major in Political Science and a Minor in Peace Studies (2001). She completed her Master of Arts degree in International Relations at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) in Ottawa, with a specialty in Conflict Analysis and Conflict  Resolution. 

Carina Yıldırım-Schlüsing

Carina Yıldırım-Schlüsing has worked in research projects on German arms exports, Kurdish actor networks in the Middle East, and the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus. She has provided advice to German ministries such as the GFFO and BMZ. At bicc, she currently supports the Scientific Advisory Board of the Interministerielle Arbeitsgruppe (IMAG) Salafismusprävention. She recently submitted a PhD thesis at the University of Bonn. She has been educated in Political Science and Cultural Anthropology at the Universities of Bonn (MA, 2015) and Göttingen (BA, 2012) and studied abroad at the Université Paris-Sorbonne and University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She completed several internships, amongst others at the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) and the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy Hamburg (IFSH). During her studies she received a scholarship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Marc von Boemcken

Since January 2021, Marc von Boemcken is the Head of Research at bicc. Starting his career at bicc as early as 2003, Marc has been involved in a wide range of research and advisory projects at the institute, such as the BMZ-funded projects “Security, Armament and Development in Recipient States of German Arms Exports” and developed the Global Militarisation Index (GMI) and “Commercialization of security practices in developing countries”. He was the co-editor of the Peace Report in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Between 2015 and 2019 Marc directed an international research consortium with partners in Central Asia on the everyday “securityscapes” of marginalised groups in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. From 2018 to 2021 Marc coordinated the research project “Preventing radicalization in North-Rhine-Westphalia” and (since 2019) the academic network “CoRE-NRW”. 

Berivan Aymaz

Berivan Aymaz is Vice-President of the state parliament since June 2022 and a member of the BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN party since 2009. She was the spokesperson for the NRW Secular Greens state working group from 2012 to 2018 and a member of the board of the Cologne district association of BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN from 2013 to 2014. In 2023 she was the Green Party´s direct candidate for the Bundestag, Cologne I constituency (constituency 93). Berivan Aymay is a member of the Supervisory Board of UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe e.V. From 2017 to 2022 she acted as spokesperson of the Green Party parliamentary group for refugee policy, integration policy, international affairs/one world. Berivan Aymaz is a member of the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament since 1 June 2017.