5th IMA International Conference on Influence and Conflict
previously Analysing Conflict Transformation

Date: Monday 23 - Wednesday 25 April 2012
Location: Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst

Registration is now open

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the application of influence as a tool for achieving objectives or maintaining outcomes. One reason for this is that actions alone seldom achieve intended effects - there is a need to change 'hearts and minds' if developments are to sustain any lasting impact. This conference will provide a forum for the exploration of the synergy between soft and hard power in conflict situations. As is appropriate for an IMA-supported event the emphasis will be upon the contribution that explicitly analytical approaches can make to this theme. Specifically it is expected that the relevance of mathematics and mathematical logic will be demonstrated in those abstracts accepted for the conference programme.

The conference topic brings to the fore the art of strategic communication (defined by Tatham as: 'A systematic series of sustained and coherent activities, conducted across strategic, operational and tactical levels, that enables understanding of target audiences, identifies effective conduits, and develops and promotes ideas and opinions through those conduits to promote and sustain particular types of behaviour'). It also demands the melding of ideas from a wide range of disciplines – naturally majoring upon mathematics but also including decision sciences, diplomacy and international relations, peace and war studies, anthropology and psychology, military and political science, linguistics and communication studies - whose practitioners and scholars presently engage with the influence and conflict.

This conference, the 5th in an established and successful series hosted by the IMA will, like its predecessors, provide a forum for sharing the latest thinking in these disparate fields and for building multidisciplinary links between researchers. It will bring together conflict analysis and its practical consequences. The organisers are especially seeking contributions that, while springing from rigorous mathematically-based theory, pay attention to the applications. Case studies would therefore be perfectly appropriate. We invite proposals for facilitating workshops and running simulations as well as reports of experimentation and interactive modelling.

This is an international event and will attract contributors from many countries. The conference is intended as a meeting place for those who operate directly in arenas of conflict (e.g. the military, staff of NGOs, mediators), those who provide support or advice (e.g. analysts, contractors, counsellors) and others who offer theoretical concepts and practical frameworks for handling conflict (e.g. academic researchers). While the organisers, by locating this conference at RMAS, are deliberately setting out to indicate a strong military dimension, this will not be an exclusive focus: indeed it is only by working with other communities of practice that the military missions are likely to succeed.

Contact information:
For general queries regarding the conference, please contact:
Lizzi Lake, Conference Officer
E-mail: conferences@ima.org.uk Tel: +44 1702 354020
Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, Catherine Richards House,
16 Nelson Street, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England SS1 1EF.