Mateja Peter joined the School of International Relations in September 2015. She is actively involved in the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, the first all-Scotland global affairs institute, having previously served as its Executive Director. Dr Peter is also the founding co-director of the Centre for Global Law and Governance.  

She previously worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and held post-doctoral fellowships at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), and the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS). She received her PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Dr Peter’s research focuses on the role of third-party actors—states and international organisations—in contemporary peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction. She is particularly interested in how shifts in the global order are reshaping conflict management practices and norms, including UN peacekeeping and international mediation.

She currently serves as the Research Lead for the PeaceRep Global Fragmentation project, funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). In this role, she leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh. Together, they are developing the Mediation Events and Negotiators Database (MEND), a pioneering global resource on third-party mediation in violent conflicts.

Dr Peter’s academic expertise frequently supports policy-making processes. In addition to her work with the FCDO as part of her leadership role on the PeaceRep consortium, she has previously supported the UN High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations and served on the Advisory Group for the OECD’s States of Fragility 2025 report.

Dr Peter’s teaching typically covers international law, international organisations, global governance, and issues of conflict and intervention. She is currently leading the Vertically Integrated Project module PeaceHub: Global Mediation Database, which enables students to directly contribute to the MEND database while developing collaborative, team‑based skills through group work on contemporary conflicts.