VPA Academic Collaborators Group

Co-Leaders:

Bandy Lee, Peter Donnelly, and Joám Evans Pim

Academic Collaborators is a group within the VPA that aims to make use of the unique forum of the VPA to help integrate science, practice, and policy in the area of violence prevention and health promotion. By strengthening collaborations between stakeholders across sectors and drawing upon the diverse perspectives and combined skills of the group, it aims to advance academic understanding as well as to produce practical and programmatic recommendations. Members’ expertise spans from self-directed to interpersonal to collective violence. Together their goal is to share information across disciplines and sectors to better address the commonalities that underlie different types of violence and to help create a more peaceful world.

Our goals include the following:

• To use the uniquely multi-sectoral, multi-level forum of the VPA to share information, projects, and a global vision
• To create informal, accessible gatherings of minds
• To help bridge the gap between research and practice through conversations, collaborative partnerships, and joint projects between academics and implementers
• To hold academic meetings, which allow more members from low- and middle-income countries to apply for funding to also be able to come to the larger VPA and Milestones meetings
• To address the “90/10 dilemma” of global violence, whereby 90% of violence scholarship publications come out of regions where 10% of the global violence occurs
• To foster academic and research partnerships between high-income country and low- and middle-income country members and affiliates for the purpose of publishing journal articles or academic volumes
• To serve as a “think tank” that examines and interprets existing evidence, with an emphasis on scholarship from low- and middle-income countries

Activities so far:

• Journal special issue with Aggression and Violent Behavior (2014) Viewable at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13591789/19/6
• Partial journal special issue with Social Science and Medicine (2015) Viewable at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02779536/146
• Academic meeting, Geneva (2015)
• Pairing of scholars from low- and middle-income countries and early-career researchers with writing mentors
• Special issue with Journal of Public Health Policy (2016) Launch mid-September at: http://link.springer.com/journal/41271
• Special issue with International Journal of Public Health (2016) Launch mid-October at: http://link.springer.com/journal/38/61/8/page/1

Violence, health, and the 2030 Agenda: Merging evidence and implementation

Authors: Bandy X. Lee, Peter D. Donnelly, Larry Cohen, and Shikha Garg

- Read the paper

Transforming Our World: Implementing the 2030 Agenda Through Sustainable Development Goal Indicators

Authors: Bandy X. Lee; Finn Kjaerulf; Shannon Turner ; Larry Cohen ; Peter D. Donnelly ; Robert Muggah; Rachel Davis; Anna Realini; Berit Kieselbach; Lori Snyder MacGregor; Irvin Waller; Rebecca Gordon; Michele Moloney-Kitts; Grace Lee; James Gilligan

- Read the paper