Professor Oliver Ramsbotham has been Chair of the Board since April 2007. 

Oliver Ramsbotham is particularly involved in ORG’s Middle East programme, where his original approach to handling intractable conflict and its associated linguistic intractability, which he calls ‘radical disagreement’, both informs - and is informed by - ORG's ongoing work with the Palestinian Strategic Group and the Israeli Strategic Forum. 

Oliver is Emeritus Professor of Conflict Resolution at the University of Bradford (UK) and President of the Conflict Research Society. He is series co-Editor of Routledge Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution. 

In addition to many articles, he has published books relevant to all three areas of ORG's programme activity. These include books on nuclear deterrence, alternative defence options, and peacekeeping in the area of sustainable security, as well as books on dialogue and the management of radical disagreement in the Middle East including: Transforming Violent Conflict: Radical Disagreement, Dialogue and Survival, Routledge 2010. He is also the author of Contemporary Conflict Resolution, with Hugh Miall and Tom Woodhouse, Polity 2011 (third edition).