Advancing a deeper,
more human understanding of peace
The Han Park Peace Institute advances a multidimensional, human-centered vision of peace, rooted in the belief that true peace is not the absence of conflict, but an active condition of harmony that grows from the appreciation of human diversity.
who we are
A HUB FOR PEACE SCHOLARSHIP & PRACTICE
The Han Park Peace Institute honors the legacy of scholar, educator, and peacemaker Han S. Park by advancing his transformative vision of peace through research, education, and community engagement grounded in the belief that diversity is the foundation of harmony.
our mission
CULTIVATE PEACE AS AN ACTIVE, CREATIVE PURSUIT
To advance a multidimensional understanding of peace through research, education, and engagement that celebrate human differences, nurture inner and collective well-being, and promote peace as a living practice for all peoples.
Our vision
A WORLD THAT PRACTICES PEACE DAILY
A world where diverse identities, cultures, and belief systems coexist in mutual appreciation, where individuals, communities, and nations practice peace not as a political condition, but as a daily expression of shared humanity.
Our Philosophy
Peace is not what happens when conflict stops. It is what you build when you choose harmony over fear.
Traditional approaches define peace through military security, political stability, or the cessation of violence. Dr. Park saw this as a fundamental category error. Peace is not a political condition. It is a human one, cultural, psychological, relational, and structural. And it begins not between nations, but within individuals.
These three dimensions are not sequential. They are interdependent. Inner peace shapes how we engage with others. Community harmony creates the conditions for just systems. And just systems, in turn, make it possible for individuals to cultivate peace within themselves. Dr. Park's framework asks us to work at all three levels simultaneously, and to understand that peace is not passive. It is a vibrant, evolving way of existing with ourselves and with one another.
01 - where peace begins
INNER PEACE
Peace cannot be built outward if it has not been cultivated inward. Dr. Park taught that self-awareness, emotional balance, and the honest examination of one's own assumptions and fears are the first conditions of any lasting peace. A person who has not confronted their own capacity for division cannot build harmony with others.
02 - where peace is practiced
COMMUNITY & INTERPERSONAL PEACE
Peace becomes real in the space between people, in families, neighborhoods, institutions, and nations. This dimension requires mutual respect, the willingness to understand across difference, and the active repair of fractured relationships. It is where empathy is tested and where harmony either takes root or fails.
03 - where peace is sustained
GLOBAL & STRUCTURAL PEACE
Individual and community peace cannot be sustained without just and humane systems, institutions, policies, and global structures that uphold human dignity rather than suppress it. Dr. Park's diplomacy work, including decades of engagement on the Korean Peninsula, was a direct expression of this dimension: peace requires architecture, not just goodwill.
our approach
The Institute operates across three interconnected areas, each reinforcing the others, each grounded in Dr. Park's framework of peace as an active, multidimensional human pursuit.
Research
Convening scholars across disciplines to build a robust, evidence-based language for peace, studying what works, where harmony flourishes, and how Positive Peace can be measured and replicated. The methodology matches the mission: open, appreciative, and grounded in what is possible rather than only what has failed.
Education
Developing peace-centered curricula, training programs, and conference programming for students, practitioners, community leaders, and future peacebuilders, translating Dr. Park's framework into tools that people can use in their own lives, organizations, and communities.
outreach & Diplomacy
Engaging directly with communities, governments, and civil society organizations to advance people-centered approaches to dialogue, reconciliation, and cross-cultural understanding, building on Dr. Park's four decades of Track II diplomacy as a model for what citizen-led peace engagement can achieve.
WHAT MAKES US DISTINCT
A Different starting point changes everything. Most peace work begins with conflict, studying it, managing it, resolving it. The Institute begins somewhere else entirely.
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An expanded definition of peace that is cultural, psychological, relational, and structural, not limited to the absence of war or the presence of political stability.
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A framework that integrates all three dimensions of peace: inner transformation, interpersonal and community harmony, and global structural justice, treating them as interdependent, not separate.
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A celebration of human diversity as the essential source of harmony, not an obstacle to overcome, but the very material from which genuine peace is built.
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A commitment to peace as an active, creative pursuit, not a reactive response to crisis, but an ongoing human project shaped by dialogue, inquiry, and imagination.
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A holistic approach that brings together scholarship, diplomatic practice, and lived human experience, refusing the division between theory and action.
GLOBAL IMPACT
40+
YEARS OF SCHOLARSHIP & DIPLOMACY
50+
TRIPS TO NORTH KOREA
4
CONTINENTS OF EXCHANGE PROGRAMS
As founding Director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues (GLOBIS) at the University of Georgia, Dr. Park expanded international education and cross-cultural exchange programs throughout Europe, Asia, and South Africa, helping students develop a broader understanding of global interdependence and peacebuilding.
Internationally recognized for his role in Track II diplomacy, Dr. Park facilitated dialogue between North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, and the United States during periods of heightened political tension. He was instrumental in former President Jimmy Carter's visits to Pyongyang in 1994 and 2010, engagements that may have averted military confrontation. Former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg called him "the architect of US-DPRK relations."
The University of Georgia honored his legacy by establishing a campaign for the Han S. Park Professor of Peace Studies, a permanent recognition of his contribution to scholarship, teaching, and the practice of peace. The Institute carries that work forward.