The Nordic prime ministers and heads of government recently met in Finland. Following the meeting, they issued a joint declaration to work together to increase crisis preparedness and resilience.
In Finland and Åland's presidency programme for the Nordic Council of Ministers this year, one of the main themes is also to strengthen overall security in the Nordic Region.
Attention to resilience and preparedness is also a major focus for NordForsk. For more than 10 years, NordForsk has awarded funding for research into societal security. Most recently, there was a call on antagonistic threats in the Nordic and Baltic region, which had a deadline of 12 June 2025.
87 projects have applied for funding. The funding decision will be made by the end of the year.
Special Advisor Bodil Aurstad and Senior Advisor Thomas Jacobsson are responsible for the call.
"The result is a strong testament to the capabilities of Nordic and Baltic researchers in the field of societal security. We now look forwards to the evaluation process and to supporting excellent, high-impact research. The funded projects will generate new knowledge on key themes such as models of Total Defence, hybrid threats, organised crime and terrorism," says Thomas Jacobsson.
Resilient in the face of antagonistic threats
Cyber attacks, disinformation and organised crime. These are all examples of what we call "hybrid threats".
In the Nordic and Baltic countries, many of these threats are relatively new, and there is limited knowledge about how best to build preparedness against them. NordForsk, in collaboration with research funders in Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, as well as Estonia and Lithuania, will therefore announce research funding for projects that will both generate knowledge about various aspects of hybrid threats and build much-needed research expertise and capacity on hybrid threats in the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Arne Flåøyen, Director of NordForsk says:
"The research will contribute to supporting societal security and resilience in the region through new knowledge and the development of solutions, improvements and actionable measures. It's important to understand how governments at different levels, businesses and civil society can best work together to make society more resilient to hybrid threats."
Nordic and Baltic co-operation
The research initiative is a collaboration between the Research Council of Norway, the Research Council of Finland, the Research Council of Iceland Rannis, the Research Council of Estonia, the Research Council of Lithuania, the Novo Nordisk Foundation in Denmark and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency.
