Around the world, conflicts rage and simmer. People are killed, injured, and displaced. The instability of global politics has exacerbated already fraught situations. Powerful digital technologies create new fronts on which people fight.
Preventing conflict and promoting peace is always an urgent undertaking. Recently, these efforts have felt even more pressing.
In February, Behavioral Scientist will team up with the peace science organization Neuropaz to host “Hard Truths and Paths Forward: Peace as a Scientific Challenge,” an online event exploring the latest work and thinking at the intersection of behavioral science and peace and conflict. The event is free to attend, and you can register here.
Date: Friday, February 6, 2026
Time: 9:00am – 3:30pm New York/Bogotá | 2:00pm – 8:30pm London | 3:00pm – 9:30pm Berlin/Lagos | 5:00pm -11:30pm Nairobi
Location: Online
Cost: Free to attend
Register: Register here
About Neuropaz 2026
Wherever we find conflict or peace, we find ourselves. We find our attitudes and emotions, our norms and traditions, our governments and institutions. A better understanding of who we are is crucial to understanding who we can become—people at war or people at peace.
The theme of Neuropaz 2026—hard truths and paths forward—reflects the many roadblocks that characterize this line of work, including funding cuts to research and aid agencies, technologies that amplify outrage, and politicians who prioritize power over peace. Neuropaz 2026 will bring together leading scientists, practitioners, policymakers, and funders to face these obstacles head-on. Through open, candid conversations about what stands in our way, we hope to illuminate new paths forward.
Featured speakers include leading scholars and organizations, such as Nobel Prize-winning economist James A. Robinson, psychologists Betsy Levy Paluck and Felipe De Brigard, the International Rescue Committee, Global Partners Governance, Semillas de Apego (Seeds of Attachment), Memoria & Perdón (Memory & Forgiveness), and more.
The event will bring together the different philosophies, methods, interventions, and programs from behavioral science, peace and conflict, and beyond. The aim is to create productive collisions among the varying perspectives and approaches.
The full program for Neuropaz 2026 will be released in January 2026. Today, you can register for the event to secure your spot.
Neuropaz goes global
This will be the first time the Neuropaz event goes global. Neuropaz began in Colombia in 2022 and has hosted four in-person events across Bogotá, Medellín, and Cartagena. The event was founded in part to honor the late neuroscientist Emile Bruneau and his vision for what behavioral science can bring to peace building. He worked with passion and purpose to make progress on peace through science in Colombia and beyond. Now, Neuropaz 2026 will bring the event and the spirit of Emile to a global community.
We hope you’ll join us. Register here for the event and invite your friends and colleagues.
Sincerely,
Evan Nesterak, Editor-in-Chief, Behavioral Scientist & Andrés Casas, Founder, Neuropaz
