We will develop the "Changing Character of Conflict (CCC) Platform" that will transform current ways of thinking about conflict in three ways: first, the project will be the first of its kind to produce a comprehensive understanding of how, when and in which direction conflict changes. Second, drawing on this understanding, it will allow tracing and visualising dynamic change over time in five dimensions which shape armed conflict: the actors involved, the methods used, the environments in which conflict is embedded, the resources used to fuel conflict and the impact it has on civilians. Third, it will provide evidence-based guidance to forecast the directions and pace of change in conflict, necessary to adapt security policies to an evolving security landscape. This research will mainly focus on Strand 1 of the PaCCS conflict theme, "New Perspectives on the Changing Character and Mosaic of Conflict". Co-developed with our long-standing partners, the UK Ministry of Defence's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), the Turin-based United Nations Staff System College (UNSSC) and the Washington-based New America Foundation, the project will have an enduring impact by revolutionising ineffective policy interventions. Changes in conflict remain under-researched. Security policies continue to adopt reactive approaches rather than anticipating new scenarios. Existing conflict, peace and stability indices facilitate tracing conflict over time, yet do not explicitly address dynamic change in past, contemporary and future conflict. Based on traditional measures such as battle deaths, most assume a state-centric approach despite the increasingly transnational nature of threats to human security. To disrupt these orthodoxies, we integrate various disciplinary perspectives and methods: archival research (history), multi-year ethnographic fieldwork and expert interviews (development studies/anthropology), analysis of visual representations of conflict (arts), quantitative data analysis (political sciences, economics) and mathematical modelling and software coding (STEM). Two factors make such an innovative and ambitious research approach possible: the project's embedment in the University of Oxford's highly interdisciplinary, independent Changing Character of War Programme and collaboration with top scholars from world-leading institutions such as MIT. We will conduct ten in-depth qualitative case studies which include accounting for local perceptions and cultural influences captured in visual artwork. We will compare and complement these studies with the analysis of global quantitative data and situate them in the larger historical context since the late middle ages. Based on this we will design an analytical tool to trace and visualise change in conflict for all years since 1945 in the five dimensions, with a particular focus on 1990 onwards, which roughly coincides with the onset of the so-called Information Age. Coupled with new technologies, we will develop a cutting-edge software application to identify the probability of future change in conflict. Even though the application will not capture all of the complexity of conflicts, it will allow time-constrained policymakers utilising detailed research through a heuristic summary tool. We will ensure the sustainability of the research. As we will identify knowledge gaps in the five dimensions of change across time, space and cultures, our research will proffer novel, interdisciplinary pathways to researching change in other conflicts and carrying out further in-depth studies in each of the dimensions. Similarly, it will be possible to tailor the analytical tool, which will be openly accessible online, and the software application to the newly emerging needs and specific contexts of diverse users. The project will help users prepare themselves for addressing and countering the most pressing security challenges beyond the grant period.