The Centre for Peace Studies started out as a research and co-ordination project in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Tromsø, Norway. The project was initially funded for the period 2002-2006 and became permanent in 2007.
Inspired by the conference Higher Education for Peace on 4–6 May 2000, dreams, ambitions and hopes for such a project saw results when in November 2001 The Norwegian Parliament awarded the funds needed to establish a national and international centre for Peace Studies. The assignment letter states that “the Centre is to establish new competence within the field of peace- and conflict-studies, and within such areas as ethnicity and democracy-building. The centre is to have a co-ordinating role for the field, both nationally and internationally.”
In the field of Peace Research, the centre's main position is to focus on non-violent forms of conflict resolution, emphasizing the task of building a positive, sustainable peace. In other words, the centre's task is not primarily to analyze wars or keep an account of wars, armament or civil wars, but rather to focus how – and on what basis – a civil and transnational, sustainable peace can be built. In November 2002 this work started with a symposium on non-violence, where leading experts on Peace Research from all continents met in Tromsø to establish the current status of the field and point the way ahead.