Full members
Commit to the documentation standards, to hosting capacity, and to co-signing eligibility for joint statements.
Who we are
A secretariat, a network, and a shared standard.
The Helsinki secretariat, the founding director, and how the network of member institutions is structured.
Governance
A secretariat, a network, and a shared standard.
GACF is governed by a small secretariat based in Helsinki, supported by a Board of Trustees drawn from member institutions and international humanitarian law experts. The Helsinki Secretariat coordinates documentation review, manages the AGORA platform, and serves as the network’s primary liaison to international partner organisations.
Founding Director
Professor Ali Gorji
A neuroscientist holding chairs at both the University of Münster and the University of Tehran, Professor Gorji initiated the Civilians of Iran project in 2019 and convened the first GACF member meeting in Helsinki in 2021. His academic work in epilepsy research and his humanitarian work in conflict documentation are, in his view, the same discipline: the systematic, honest recording of what happens to human beings.
Network structure
Full members, supporting members, and conflict-zone status
Supporting members
Access the registry and the platform without the full obligations of membership.
Conflict-zone members
Hold a special status: they are both contributors to and beneficiaries of the network’s protection work.
All member institutions sign the GACF Charter, committing to the impartial documentation of attacks regardless of the responsible party, and to the privacy and safety of the scholars whose profiles appear in the registry. Apply to join the network →
The panes marked Plannedin the rail — the Board of Trustees, the funding breakdown, annual reports, how to give, and work-with-us — are not published here. Each states facts about real people, real funders or real money that this build cannot verify, and the content ledger’s rule is that an unverified claim is absent rather than approximated. They appear when the secretariat supplies the copy. See the member directory for what the record does hold.