Data for Peace

Bridging Innovation with Policy and Practice to Prevent Violence in All Its Forms

Violence is rising across every domain: armed conflict is at its highest level since World War II, organized crime is expanding and reorganizing across borders, and interpersonal violence continues to claim hundreds of thousands of lives each year. Amidst all this, the digital transformation and rise of artificial intelligence have created new tools and avenues for those perpetrating violence. At the same time, these same technologies—including artificial intelligence, new data streams, and rapidly maturing methods of analysis and forecasting—are transforming how risk can be anticipated and addressed, while the policies, regulations, and institutional frameworks meant to govern them struggle to keep pace.

Data for Peace works to ensure that these advances do not remain confined to the analytical community, but inform the policy and operational decisions they are meant to serve.

Launched in 2019 at NYU Center on International Cooperation, the program has become a leading platform for the violence prevention and the early-warning community, convening researchers, peacebuilders, policymakers, data providers, humanitarian, and security actors. Its work rests on a two-way exchange: innovators and researchers gain a clearer understanding of what makes a tool usable, timely, and trusted in real-world settings, while policymakers and practitioners explore how emerging methods and evidence apply to their operational realities and policy priorities. Alongside questions of uptake, the program engages with the accountability that comes with applying these tools to prevention, including algorithmic transparency, data protection, human oversight, and the ethical and human rights dimensions of the work. Across its programmatic areas, it promotes collaboration over competition, working to reduce duplication and fragmentation across the data-for-peace ecosystem.

The program currently focuses on:

• The annual Data for Peace Conference: a multi-day convening combining in-person and fully virtual programming, co-hosted by NYU CIC, AI for Peace, and PRIO. The 2026 edition brought together more than 100 participants for two days of in-person sessions in Stockholm and more than 1,500 registrants representing over 1,000 organizations. On the virtual day it featured more than 145 speakers across 58 sessions.
• A year-round community of practice (under consideration): Sustaining engagement between editions, this community has plans for regular webinars, a quarterly newsletter, and community updates on the latest developments and opportunities in the field.

Join the community

• Follow the conference LinkedIn page.
• Subscribe to the mailing list.