This year has been one of celebration for SIPRI, marking 60 years of research for international peace and security. As part of those celebrations SIPRI has created a collection of online materials on a dedicated 60th anniversary page. This includes video interviews and written messages from SIPRI alumni and friends, such as United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu and SIPRI’s longest-serving director, Dr Adam Daniel Rotfeld.
SIPRI first opened its doors in 1966, following an initiative by prominent Swedish diplomat and later Nobel peace laureate Alva Myrdal and Prime Minister Tage Erlander. The founding of a new peace research institute in Stockholm was intended to mark 150 years of unbroken peace in Sweden. Two of the video interviews go back to those early days: Dr Elisabeth Sköns talks about the personalities and ideas behind SIPRI’s founding, while Ambassador Örjan Berner shares his experience as acting director in 1966, turning an idea into a functioning Institute.
Several of the written pieces give a flavour of the intellectual and social life of the Institute at different times in its history, as well as describing how SIPRI has adapted itself to a changing world. For example, Dr Rotfeld, SIPRI’s Director from 1991 to 2001, talks about navigating the Institute through the rapid transformations that followed the end of the cold war. Former SIPRI IT Director Gerd Hagmeyer-Gaverus describes how he helped SIPRI to become one of the first Swedish organizations to have an internet presence and set standards in online data access for others to follow.
You can also watch the full 60th anniversary and SIPRI Yearbook launch event at the Swedish Parliament, which took place in June this year. More materials will be added to the collection before the end of the year.
Click here to visit the anniversary page and join us in celebrating six decades of SIPRI’s work on peace and security.