How does doing peace work? At a time when the established institutions and mechanisms of building and sustaining peace have come under severe stress, it is all the more important to focus on both the existing and innovative practices of making peace work. We study practices of establishing, maintaining, and sustaining peace on a local level. Our approach enables us to better understand the diverse and complex conditions for making peace work. As an institute in and from Hamburg, we are deliberately focusing on how does doing peace work in our city. It is here, we can identify the promises as well as the challenges and setbacks of constructive conflict management in a variety of local social settings. The project uses participatory and transdisciplinary methods contributing to recent debates about involving citizens in research processes and the role of academia in and for society. In our research projects, we actively involve partners from museums and civil society movements as well as from municipalities and local politics.