Professor Oliver Richmond is a leading scholar in the field of IR, Peace and Conflict Studies. He is founder of the MA in Peace and Conflict Studies and contributes to its core modules in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester. In 2019, he received an Eminent Scholar Award from the International Studies Association. He has worked with international actors, especially the UN, and civil society organisations in several conflict-affected areas around the world. He has contributed to  numerous policy reports,documentaries, and recently to UNESCO's work on culture for peace, as well to the Nobel Centre's recent exhibitions on Artpeace. 

Among his publications are his recent books and monographs, Counter-Peace: Tactical Blockages to Peace and Strategic Risks for the International System (with Sandra Pogodda, and  Gëzim Visoka), The Grand Design: Peace in the 21^st Century (Oxford University Press, 2022), Peace Formation and Political Order in Conflict Affected Societies (Oxford University Press, 2016), and Failed Statebuilding: Intervention, the State and the Dynamics of Peace Formation (Yale University Press, 2014). He has also published Peace in International Relations (Routledge, 2008/2020), and The Transformation of Peace (Palgrave, 2005/2024). He has published a non-academic book, A Very Short Introduction to Peace (Oxford University Press,  2014/ 2023, also in Spanish and Japanese), which offers an overview of the development of related concepts, theory and practices to do with peace and peacemaking.

He has led or contributed to many global research projects including most recently: on Artpeace (EU Horizon, 2026-29); Blockages to Democratisation (EU Horizon, 2022-5); an AHRC-project ‘ The Art of Peace’ (with civil society, arts partners in Lebanon, Bosnia, South Africa, and Colombia, 2019-24).  He is an Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

He co-edits a Palgrave Book Series called Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, which seeks to provide a forum for the development of new and alternative approaches for understanding the dynamics of conflict and of the construction of peace: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14500

He is co-editor of the journal "Peacebuilding": https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpcb20/current

He is also co-editor of The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies

He is also a member of the editorial boards of several key journals, and is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and the Academy of Social Sciences.