The GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub will deliver innovative interdisciplinary research on the challenge of achieving gender justice and inclusive security in conflict-affected societies. The Hub addresses the overlapping of three major policy areas: Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on gender equality; SDG 16 on peace, inclusivity and justice; and the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. The UK is a global leader on these issues, particularly gender equality, which is at the heart of UK Aid Strategy as well as a national security priority. Yet in each of these areas, progress has been frustratingly slow, and in some cases has stalled altogether. The Hub will develop an evidence base on the intersections of gender, justice and security; expand research capacity in collaboration with international partners; and make use of unrivalled links with leading ambassadors for gender justice (Hub Champions) to translate research into impact for the achievement of sustainable peace. Promoting the conditions for gender justice and inclusive security requires a broad vision, ability to unite disparate specialisms, develop capacity across the sites where the development challenge is most intense, and provide independent scrutiny of policy initiatives. A diverse team of PI and co-investigators, widely regarded as experts in gender studies, development, justice and/or WPS, will lead the research. The Hub will pursue its key questions through four projects - on Transformation & Empowerment; Land, Livelihoods & Rights; Migration & Displacement; and Masculinities & Sexualities, as well as two cross-cutting work streams on Law & Policy Frameworks and Methodological Innovation. The challenge the Hub confronts is global, but appears in different ways across contexts. To generate detailed knowledge from which to draw scalable conclusions and recommendations, the Hub will focus on eight core cases: Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Uganda. While each is distinctive in its experiences and timelines of conflict, the cases are broadly geographically representative and are all significantly conflict-affected. The Hub structure is designed to build deep and lasting links between researchers, project partners, policy makers, civil society actors and vulnerable groups. In addition to a range of academic outputs (monographs; journal articles; visual materials; working papers; policy reports) specific to each project, the Hub will yield several other outputs of significance for the wider research community: new datasets on transitional justice, women's empowerment and subsequent backlash, and post-conflict reconciliation; a major 'Global Gender, Justice and Security' report, with researchers from across the Hub contributing data and chapters; and an innovative web portal providing wide access to Hub research. The portal will be the Hub's main site of public engagement, featuring videos, podcasts and case studies of the development challenge and effective responses to it, as well as serving as a resource beyond the end of the award. While the Hub will be housed administratively at the LSE Centre for WPS, its activities will be most evident in the eight core countries. Hub workshops will be held in each one throughout the grant, to include knowledge exchange, research presentation and development, leadership team meetings to identify project synergies and forward plan, visits from Hub Champions, policy meetings, networking and collaboration opportunities and expert-led training. Hub institutions have committed to providing access to research methods courses for researchers from the core countries. The Hub's activities will be geared towards achieving five forms of impact (including policy and institutional reform and capacity building), in partnership with global south researchers and civil society, to the benefit of those currently facing gender insecurity and injustice.

1) Deliver ambitious and impactful research to facilitate gender justice and inclusive security in conflict-affected societies. The primary objective of the Hub is to convene experts from a range of disciplinary, professional and geographic backgrounds to participate in six major projects which address the most pressing conceptual and empirical knowledge gaps and the most urgent policy challenges in the field of gender justice and security. To generate detailed and comparative knowledge from which to draw scalable conclusions and recommendations, the Hub will focus on eight core cases, from which many Hub participants are drawn. Advocacy organisations in these sites have long recognised the interactions between conflict, gender inequalities and injustice, and partners will ensure that Hub research findings are translated into impact. By bringing together experts from a range of backgrounds who share a commitment to achieving gender justice and security, the Hub will enable a critical and creative rethinking of existing research foci and methods to generate new and emancipatory research. 2) Foster interdisciplinary research innovation through knowledge exchange and capacity building. All projects within the Hub are interdisciplinary in design, and all have a diverse range of researchers and projects partners responsible for work packages within them. The primary activities of the central Hub will be to generate a state-of-the-art web portal to enable virtual collaboration among Hub researchers across work packages, and to host nine week-long workshops which will be held in case sites and London. A key goal of the workshops will be to act as a crucible for the development of research and expertise across projects. Co-directors will use workshops to identify synergies between strands of research within their projects and between findings across case sites, and to identify researchers who could fruitfully contribute to other work packages. This will ensure dynamism in the research process, and generate a dense network of institutional and professional relationships across the Hub. Participants will also develop their interdisciplinary skills through exposure to alternative approaches to their field of study and opportunities to collaborate across disciplinary and professional boundaries. Exchange visits between Hub institutions and an informal mentoring programme will further build capacity. 3) Engage policy makers, advocacy groups and publics in the case sites and elsewhere. Engagement, including with more marginalised stakeholders, is central to the success of the Hub. All projects will conduct stakeholder mapping in year 1, and will engage stakeholders by conducting research with appropriate partners. Hub activities will take place in each case site and be open to the public when possible, giving opportunities for many outside the Hub to benefit from it. 4) Synthesise, map and disseminate knowledge and identify gaps. The Hub is innovative in the connections it makes between the goals of SDG5, SDG16 and WPS. Work packages in years 1 and 2 of the Hub will map the existing knowledge base in terms of these connections, for instance by evaluating the gendered development impacts of transitional justice programmes, specifically on livelihoods and land ownership; tracking women's conflict-related empowerment opportunities; and tracing audio-visual and material cultures to understand how life is rearranged around conflict. Resources have been allocated to gather and review academic and non-academic research, as well as material such as visual representations. This mapping will include developing links to research projects underway outside the Hub to provide a full picture of existing work and to expose gaps. New insights will be gained by engaging with the perspectives of less powerful stakeholders in the case sites. The mapping, and links to all open access material, will be made available via the web portal.