In 2019, ACLED introduced new event and sub-event types to improve the project's core methodology. Following the release of Version 8, and encouraged by a partnership with The University of Texas at Austin, ACLED transitioned to a dynamic project that collects data in real time and releases updates on a weekly basis. This release brought the total number of countries covered to 79. Version 8 expanded to include 14 states in South and Southeast Asia as well as 15 in the Middle East. New additions – including remote violence and revised terminology – were added in Versions 5, 6, and 7.

Each version extended and revised collections of political violence and protest data in African states. Subsequently, Version 2 was released in 2011, Version 3 in 2012, and Version 4 in 2013. The dataset was introduced by Raleigh and co-authors in a 2010 paper in the Journal of Peace Research. This led to the first version of the data in 2009 (pilot), which was tested with ground-truthing methods in 2010.

Raleigh was employed at Trinity College Dublin, ACLED expanded to cover the 50 least developed countries, with a concentration on African states. Initial data collection covered six Central African states and three West African states. She developed the idea while on a fellowship at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Raleigh's PhD work, with a focus on African states. In 2005, ACLED began as a component of Prof. Roudabeh Kishi and director of programs & operations Olivia Russell. Clionadh Raleigh, a professor of political violence and geography at the University of Sussex, and operated by director of research & innovation Dr. ACLED is led by founder and executive director Prof. Data are collected and analyzed by teams of researchers based around the world. Since 2014, ACLED has operated as a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization incorporated in Wisconsin. In addition to data collection, the ACLED team conducts analysis to describe, explore, and test conflict scenarios, with analysis made freely available to the public for non-commercial use. As of 2022, ACLED has recorded more than 1.3 million individual events globally. ACLED codes the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and demonstration events around the world in real time. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project ( ACLED) is a non-governmental organization specializing in disaggregated conflict data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping.

How to cite the armed conflict database