Peace Boat, described by the San Francisco Chronicle as a "floating university of sorts", offers educational opportunities aboard, with conferences related to global events.

Peace Boat also acts as the Northeast Asia regional secretariat of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict,[3] and is member of ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), having played a significant role in negotiations to strengthen the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 2017.

[4] Peace Boat is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations and a committed campaigner for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In 1983, Yoshioka Tatsuya and Kiyomi Tsujimoto, then students of Waseda University, initiated Peace Boat in answer to Japanese history textbook controversies.

As of 2009, through a number of campaigns, Peace Boat raised money to clear 886,472 sq meters of landmine inundated areas and open five elementary schools.

Seminars at sea and study/exposure tours at ports of call make up the Global University curriculum, an intensive peace and sustainability education programme focused on experiential learning.

In light of the Japanese government's pressure to amend it, Peace Boat together with the Japan Lawyers' International Solidarity Association (JALISA), launched the Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War in 2005.

On the 2009 cruise, Peace Boat visited the facility with a group of Japanese atomic bomb victims, and held the first exchange program there.

ICAN played a significant role in advocacy leading to the adoption of a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons at the United Nations in New York in July 2017.

As part of the project, Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki) join Peace Boat voyages to give their testimonies to the world of their first hand experiences with nuclear weapons, and call for their abolition.

The Peace Boat Disaster Relief Volunteer Centre (PBV) was established following the tremendous devastation caused by the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami.

The centre based its activities in one of the worst affected areas, Ishinomaki City in Miyagi Prefecture, and dispatched thousands of volunteers there to support local residents in carrying out emergency relief efforts.

PBV carries out domestic and international emergency relief work at sites affected by natural disasters such as typhoons, floods and heavy snow.

At the same time, it works toward future disaster prevention and reduction by proactively building partnerships with business and local government authorities and cultivating a network of volunteer leaders ready to act.

Peace Boat organised a multi-disciplinary charrette, bringing together world experts from fields as diverse as naval architecture, renewable energy, and biophilic and biomimetic design with the goal of defining the specifications for a ‘restorative’ vessel – where radical energy efficiency and closed material flow combine for a net positive impact on the environment.