Rate My Professor Helen Berents

Helen Berents is an Associate Professor in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University, where she serves as Hub Lead for the Governance and Diplomacy Hub in the Griffith Asia Institute. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Queensland, a Graduate Certificate of Academic Practice, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Berents specializes in the politics of children and youth in international conflict and peacebuilding, with a feminist lens on youth peace and security, everyday peace practices, and intergenerational engagement. Previously a lecturer in the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology, her career emphasizes youth agency in global politics and peace processes.

Berents held an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship from 2020 to 2024 for her project on Youth Leadership and the Future of Peace and Security. She is a member of the Swedish Folke Bernadotte Academy International Research Working Group on Youth, Peace and Security (2023-2027), the Global Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security, and the Arab Reform Initiative’s Working Group on Youth and Peacebuilding in the Middle East and North Africa (2023-2025). Her key publications include the monograph Young People and Everyday Peace: Exclusion, Insecurity and Peacebuilding in Colombia (Routledge, 2018). She co-edited Youth Leading Change: Emerging Sites of Knowledge in Peace and Conflict (Springer, 2025), Youth and Sustainable Peacebuilding (Manchester University Press, 2024), and Children, Childhoods, and Global Politics (Bristol University Press, 2023). Highly cited articles are 'Theorising youth and everyday peace (building)' (Peacebuilding, 2015; 255 citations) and 'An embodied everyday peace in the midst of violence' (Peacebuilding, 2015; 125 citations). Berents advances the field through policy-relevant research, public seminars on her DECRA findings, and the Youth, Peace and Security Observer platform, influencing intergenerational approaches to global peace.