The Calgary Peace Prize was established by the Consortium for Peace Studies in 2006 to highlight Calgary’s contribution to world peace. The prize recognizes outstanding individuals from the global community whose work has made the world a more just, safer, less violent and more equitable place.

Mark Ayyash, PhD, a professor at Mount Royal University, independently oversees the prize, lecture and award ceremony.

The Calgary Peace Prize Committee's approach to peace operates on three main principles. First, we emphasize people’s lived experience of war and violence in all the different forms they may take, from inter-state warfare to colonial violence to violence against women in spaces of conflict. Second, we seek to expand our horizons for understanding the various and often hidden historical, political, economic, cultural and social forces and dynamics that lead to the initiation and propagation of violence. Third, we highlight the bottom-up practices for healing, peace and reconciliation which are enacted by a whole range of social activists, ordinary people, rituals, cultural productions and civil society organizations.