The overall mission of the Conflict Analysis Group is to develop and implement formal methodologies for systematically studying decision situations involving multiple participants and multiple objectives.
More specifically, a variety of conflict resolution techniques have been developed for modelling and analyzing different kinds of disputes arising in the real world. For example, the graph model for conflict resolution can be employed for investigating disputes taking place in environmental management, international trade, peace keeping, labour-management negotiations, and elsewhere. By using formal procedures for better understanding a dispute and communicating with one another, parties involved in the conflict may cooperatively reach a win/win resolution which benefits everyone.
The Conflict Analysis Group has also constructed game theoretic models for assessing and designing policies and procedures for ensuring compliance to environmental regulations and adherence to arms control agreements. Moreover, group members have made contributions to Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), which constitutes a commonly occurring decision problem in which one must make an optimal selection from a set of discrete alternative solutions to a problem that is evaluated according to both quantitative and non-quantitative criteria, and to the development and application of other approaches to conflict management.