This roundtable marks the 25th anniversary of the UN Women, Peace, and Security Agenda with a critical yet constructive lens.

Bringing together four leading experts in the policy, practical, and conceptual aspects of gender and international security, the discussion will examine the Agenda’s legacy—its milestones, limitations, and the tensions that have shaped its trajectory. In a moment where global gender equality advocacy faces intensifying challenges, this event invites reflection and reimagination. Speakers will explore how the Women, Peace, and Security framework must evolve to remain effective and inclusive in a shifting political landscape.

Get your free ticket here. Please note that a ticket does not guarantee entry depending on capacity. 

Meet our speakers and chair

Dr Nancy Annan is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Peace and Security, Coventry University. She holds a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies and has over a decade of experience in peace, security, global development, and gender in Africa and other contexts. Her work spans research, training, and development in several countries. She has worked extensively with civil society groups, academics, regional and international organisations on diverse initiatives including EU Horizon 2020 project on PeaceTraining. In 2014, she was selected by the US Department of State  for their International Leadership programme as one of the global women leaders promoting peace and security. She previously worked at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), and has authored more than 20 publications on women peace and security, peacebuilding, unarmed civilian protection and peace support operations. She is a co-convener of the Canadian Research Network on Women, Peace, and Security.

Dr Aiko Holvikivi is Assistant Professor of Gender, Peace and Security at the Department of Gender Studies and an Associate Academic at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security, LSE. Her research is interested in transnational movements of knowledges and of people, and how these are produced by and productive of gendered and racialised (in)security. Her first monograph, Fixing Gender: The Paradoxical Politics of Peacekeeper Training (Oxford University Press 2024), interrogates these themes through an examination of the practice of ‘gender training’. Further questions on which she has recently worked include: forced displacement in the WPS agenda; gender experts and expertise; feminist research methods; and sexual exploitation and abuse in international deployments. She has extensive experience with policy engagement and stakeholder outreach and has taught widely across the field of interdisciplinary and transnational gender studies. 

Dr Paul Kirby is Reader in International Politics at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on wartime sexual violence, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and global masculinities. His latest book is Governing the Feminist Peace: The Vitality and Failure of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (Columbia University Press 2024, with Laura J. Shepherd). Other recent publications include ‘Positive Masculinity Now’, ‘Sexual Violence in the Border Zone’, ‘The Body Weaponised’ and New Directions in Women, Peace and Security (Bristol University Press, 2020, co-edited with Soumita Basu and Laura J. Shepherd). He was previously a Co-Director of the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub (2019-2024) and remains a Senior Visiting Fellow at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security. 

Dr Katharine Millar is an Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics. Her broad research interests lie in examining the gendered cultural narratives underlying political violence and the modern collective use of force. Her current research investigates the intersections of disarmament, law enforcement, and domestic social order as they relate to gendered and racialized notions of security. She also examines gender, race, sexuality, and the transnational politics of death; gender and cybersecurity; and liberal notions of political belonging. Dr. Millar has published on female combatants, gendered representations of violent death, military and civilian masculinity, far-right populism and conspiracy theory, the politics of hypocrisy, and critical conceptions of militarism. She is a co-convener of the Canadian Research Network on Women, Peace, and Security.

Prof Stéfanie von Hlatky is the Canada Research Chair on Gender, Security, and the Armed Forces, Full Professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University, and Fellow with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. She’s previously held positions at Georgetown University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Dartmouth College, ETH Zurich and was a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at the University of Southern California. She has published over 50 articles and chapters, two books with Oxford University Press, and five edited volumes with Georgetown University Press and McGill-Queen’s University Press. Her latest books are Deploying Feminism: The Role of Gender in NATO Military Operations (2022; 2025) and Total Defence Forces in the 21st Century (2023). Dr. von Hlatky is the founder of Women in International Security – Canada and the Honorary Colonel of the Princess of Wales’ Own Regiment.