We are an interdisciplinary research centre based in the Faculty of Arts and connected across the University of New Brunswick.
In 1980, UNB established Canada's first research centre and scholarly journal devoted to the study of terrorism and low intensity conflict. In 2006, these centres joined to form the Gregg Centre, which is named for Brigadier Milton F. Gregg, VC. We feel that Gregg’s example of service, as a soldier, as UNB’s president, and finally as a public servant, is the light that guides our activities both in and out of the university classroom.
Commercial, technological, and armed conflict remain pervasive in today’s international system. The Gregg Centre employs education best-practices and innovative research to challenge students, the Canadian people, and members of the Canadian Armed Forces to consider critical issues surrounding modern international conflict in the past, present and future.
Our team is recognized across Canada, in the United States, and around the world as a leader in the study of war and its impact on society. We remain committed to academic excellence and innovation in the study of one of humanity’s most tragic and perplexing social activities, and to the notion that knowledge and understanding are the keys to the foundations of a better world.
In addition to our regular university teaching and research duties, the faculty of the Gregg Centre are proud of our two flagship programs: The War and the Canadian Experience and the Canadian Army Studies program. Both programs are informed by our unique pedagogical approach and provide professional development opportunities for educational professionals and professional soldiers.
Our mission is to study war as a complex social phenomenon to understand its cause, course, and consequence for Canada and the world. Research on modern armed conflict and security forces drives undergraduate and graduate teaching at UNB, community engagement, as well as professional development support for educators and Canadian Armed Forces members.
Our mission builds on five decades of practice in the study of modern conflict at UNB in partnership with the Canadian Army Combat Training Centre at Base Gagetown. We strive to make UNB campuses welcoming and supportive for Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans, both Regular Force and Reserve, who study here.
We recognize that war increasingly targets civilian populations and disproportionately impacts people of colour, 2SLGBTQ+ and other minorities around the world. Our research seeks to give a voice to those often left voiceless.
We actively strive to create a safe environment for our students and partners to make them feel valued for their unique identity, abilities, sexual orientation, ethnicity, faith and gender. Everyone is welcome and supported in their development at all stages in their journey. In our growth, we aspire to further diversifying our team through hiring and by developing partnerships.
Our immersion in the human consequence of armed conflict makes us strive to ensure our campus, our Gregg Centre area, and our programs are inclusive and safe for all those affected, including veterans, serving Canadian Armed Forces members, refugees and their families.
The Brigadier Milton F. Gregg, VC, Centre builds on fifty years of expertise in the study of conflict and its impact. In the 1970s UNB developed an innovative and academically rigorous approach to teaching and writing military history, partnered with the new Canadian Army Combat Training Centre in nearby Base Gagetown. In 1980, UNB established Canada's first research centre and scholarly journal devoted to the study of terrorism and low intensity conflict. In 2006, these centres joined to form the Gregg Centre, which is named for Brigadier Milton F. Gregg, VC.
Milton Gregg came from King's County New Brunswick. He was decorated for courage and leadership under fire with the Military Cross and Bar while serving with the Royal Canadian Regiment during the Great War.
On 28 September 1918 in the midst of fierce fighting in the Marcoing Line during the final "100 Days Campaign" then Lieutenant Gregg won the Victoria Cross, the nation's highest award for valour. He returned to active service in 1939, where his abilities were applied to preparing infantry officers to lead their platoons in action during the Second World War.
Brigadier Milton Gregg, VC, is best remembered at UNB as the President (from 1944-47) who successfully accommodated the flood of demobilizing soldiers at the end of the Second World War. In 1948 he was elected as the Member of Parliament for York-Sunbury and appointed to Cabinet, where he continued his service to the nation as Minister of Fisheries and then Veteran's Affairs. He later served as a diplomat with the United Nations in Iraq, Indonesia and New York and as Canadian High Commissioner to British Guiana. Throughout his public service the Honourable Milton Gregg VC remained a staunch protector of New Brunswick's environment and heritage sites.
