​Mr. Smith is the Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). He has researched and written on security, conflict and peace for four decades. He served four years in the UN Peacebuilding Fund Advisory Group and was part-time Professor of Peace and Conflict at the University of Manchester from 2014 to 2017. Before taking up his post at SIPRI, he was Secretary General of the London-based peacebuilding NGO International Alert and Director of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. His most recent book is the 10th edition of The State of the World Atlas (2020). Mr. Smith's subject expertise covers a broad spectrum of conflict and peace issues, including nationalism, identity politics, armed conflicts, the ethics of intervention, and the gender aspects of conflict and peacebuilding.​​