RDR celebrating UCL200: Professorial inaugural lecture — Can women benefit from war?

This inaugural lecture brings together feminist peace research and gender and disaster studies to rethink how we understand conflict, crisis, and social change. Challenging dominant narratives that portray women primarily as victims, the lecture asks a provocative question: Can women benefit from war? 

Drawing on long-term field research in Nepal, it examines how conflict and disruption can sometimes open new spaces for participation, leadership, and social change. At the same time, it highlights the limits and inequalities that persist long after violence ends. By focusing on lived experiences, this lecture offers a different perspective on how gender, conflict, and crisis are connected, and what this means for building more inclusive and just societies.

Celebrating UCL200

2026 marks 200 years since UCL’s establishment as the first university in London. This UCL Risk & Disaster Reduction event celebrates this milestone, showcasing UCL’s excellence and impact. The UCL bicentennial celebrations begin in February 2026 and continue throughout the year.

Professor Punam Yadav

Professor Punam Yadav is an internationally recognised scholar in Feminist Peace Research and Gender and Disaster Studies. Her work examines the complex intersections between gender, conflict, and disaster, with a particular emphasis on processes of social transformation in post-conflict societies. 

She is especially noted for conceptualising gender, conflict, and disaster as a continuum, a framing that bridges disciplinary boundaries and opens new critical pathways in disaster studies. Professor Yadav also serves as Director of the UCL Humanitarian Institute and Co-Director of the Centre for Gender and Disaster. 

Before entering academia, Professor Yadav spent more than a decade working with national and international NGOs in Nepal. This extensive practitioner experience continues to shape her scholarly approach, grounding her research and teaching in lived realities and community-based perspectives. She has held several leadership roles including Chair of the ISA–UNAI Coordination Committee and General Secretary of the Britain Nepal Academic Council (BNAC). 

Her publications include Social Transformation in Post-Conflict Nepal: A Gender Perspective (Routledge, 2016), which has also been translated in Chinese and the influential article “Can women benefit from war? Women’s agency in conflict and post-conflict contexts” (Journal of Peace Research, 2020). In 2017, she was invited by the President of the UN General Assembly to participate in a High-Level Dialogue on Building Sustainable Peace for All. Her work continues to influence scholars, practitioners, and policymakers globally, shaping the ways gendered experiences of conflict and disaster are understood and addressed.