Wolfgang Dietrich holds the UNESCO Chair for Peace Studies at the University of Innsbruck/Austria and he is program director of the MA Program for Peace, Development, Security and International Conflict Transformation at the same University. He is member of the Austrian UNESCO Commission and visiting professor at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Vienna, at the Centre for Peace and Development Studies at the University of Castellón/Spain and at the United Nation's Peace University in Ciudad Colón/Costa Rica.

Born in Innsbruck in 1956 and Austrian citizen, Wolfgang Dietrich was educated in Austria and England, received a Ph.D. in history and literature at the University of Innsbruck in 1980 and a D.S.J. at the same University in 1984. In 1990 he was promoted to the degree of "Universitätsdozent" in Political Science according to the Austrian Law of Higher Education (UOG).

Wolfgang Dietrich has spent most of the eighties in Central America. He was president of the Austrian section of amnesty international from 1989 to 1991. In the nineties he did field research in Latin America and the Caribbean, India, Eastern Africa and Southeast Asia. He was director of the European Peace University from 1995 to 1998 and academic director of the Austrian Institute for Latin America from 1995 to 2007.

He speaks, writes and reads German, English and Spanish. He understands some French, Italian and Maya-Kakchiqel. He has taught in departments for political science, history and law at universities in Europe, USA, Latin America, Africa and Asia.