Susan Kerr, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow

Dr Susan Kerr became interested in the role that companies can play in peace-building upon meeting business leaders committed to furthering sustainable development whilst working at the European Parliament. During this time, Susan was studying an MA in international politics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Thereafter, she went on to complete a PhD on the oil sector’s CSR in Colombia and Venezuela at the University of Bradford’s peace studies department, and an MBA at Durham University Business School.

Susan is the Senior Adviser on Freedom of Religion or Belief at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).  Prior to working for ODIHR, Susan engaged in human rights consultancy work, including for the FORB Learning Platform. She has also led the Europe office of human rights organisation CSW, which works to promote freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) for people of all faiths or none. Whilst at CSW, Susan was elected to serve four consecutive mandates on the Board of Coordinators of the European Platform against Religious Intolerance and Discrimination (EPRID), which brings together different faith and non-faith based organisations to promote freedom of religion or belief worldwide and she represented CSW within the Human Rights and Democracy Network (HRDN).

Susan recently edited a book on populism and Christianity, Is God a Populist?, and has also written several papers on themes related to FoRB including hate speech and gender as well as articles on the EU’s relationship to this human right. She is also a member of the Board of Experts of the Conscience and Liberty journal for which she wrote the article ‘Multinational Companies Corporate Social Responsibility in Light of contemporary Global Challenges- Opening Pandora’s Box. Susan additionally holds an MA in European languages and EU studies from the University of Edinburgh and a diploma in conflict resolution from the University of Bradford. Susan speaks English, French, German and Spanish and has a good understanding of Dutch, Italian, Russian and Arabic.