Alpaslan Özerdem is Co-Director of the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, UK. With over 20 year field research experience in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, El Salvador, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka and Turkey, he specialises in the politics of humanitarian interventions, disaster response, conflict prevention, reintegration of former combatants and post-conflict state building.

He has also taken an active role in the initiation and management of several advisory and applied research projects for a wide range of national and international organisations such as the United Nations and international NGOs. He has published extensively and amongst other, is author of Post-war Recovery: Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (I.B. Tauris, 2008). Professor Özerdem is also President of Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN), a UK based think-tank.