The Nordic Research Council for Criminology (NSfK) has awarded funding to support new criminological crime, public attitudes toward crime and punishment in the Nordic countries, restorative justice, prevention of child sexual abuse, and more.
In 2026, NSfK received a record numer of 42 applications, : 10 for joint Nordic projects, 25 for individual research projects, and 7 for working groups. At its annual meeting in March 2026, the council selected five research projects and working groups to receive funding.
Joint Nordic Project
PHATENOR: Policing Hate Crime in the Nordics: Understanding the Operationalization and Shaping of Emergent Police Work
Eyrún Eyþórsdóttir (IS), Mika Hagerlid (SE), Rune Ellefsen (NO).
Hate crimes inflict profound harm on individuals and communities, yet much remains unknown about how police identify, investigate, and handle these cases in the Nordic countries. The PHATENOR project (Policing Hate Crime in the Nordics: Understanding the operationalization and shaping of emerging police work) compares hate crime policing across Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, examining how laws, organisational structures, and police culture shape this work in practice. Through interviews with 50 police officers across the three countries, the project will map challenges and good practices in identifying hate-motivated offences, conducting investigations, and supporting victims. The findings will contribute to criminological research, inform police training, strengthen evidence-based policy, and contribute to more effective and consistent societal responses to hate crime across the Nordic region.
– Congratulations! How does it feel to receive an NSfK grant?
Receiving this grant from NSfK with my collages Mika Hagerlid and Rune Ellefsen is truly meaningful. Hate crime causes real harm to people and communities, and we still know far too little about how police in the Nordic countries handle these cases day to day. This funding allows us to ask those questions across Iceland, Norway, and Sweden together, and hopefully contribute knowledge that can make a real difference for both police practice and the people affected by hate crime.
Individual Project
ADHD and Youth Crime: Robustness Across Cohorts, Regions, and Measures
Karoliina Suonpää (FI)
ADHD is a well-documented risk factor for crime. Recently, ADHD diagnoses among children and adolescents have increased markedly across countries, including the Nordics. For instance, in Iceland and in parts of Finland, about one in five boys now has an ADHD diagnosis. Are these rising numbers changing the link between ADHD and youth crime – and does that link depend on how crime is measured? This project combines a nationally representative survey of Finnish 15-year-olds with detailed population registers to compare self-reported and police-recorded offenses and to track trends across regions and birth cohorts. The findings will clarify the role of ADHD in youth crime and support evidence-based prevention and public communication.
Link to your personal page with contact information
https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/karoliina-suonp%C3%A4%C3%A4
Congratulations! How does it feel to receive an NSfK grant?
Thank you! I’m thrilled and grateful. This grant gives me the chance to analyze the relationship between ADHD and youth crime at a time when diagnoses are rising and concerns about youth offending are growing. It is important to re-examine this link in today’s context of higher diagnostic prevalence so that our understanding and policies are guided by up-to-date evidence.
Working groups
Gender Equality in Nordic Prisons
Linnéa Österman and Åsa Norman (SE)
This working group brings together researchers from across the Nordic countries to explore gender equality in prison systems. Growing international evidence shows that women in prison face high levels of vulnerability and have gender-specific needs. While the Nordic region is often seen as a global leader in gender equality, how these needs are met remains largely unexplored in the Nordic context. This project will initiate collaboration between Nordic researchers in this field, with the long-term aim of improving understanding of women’s experiences in prison, drawing lessons from different Nordic approaches, and ultimately contributing to stronger gender-equal policies and practices in this marginalised area of criminal justice.
Members of the working group:
Rosi Enroos, Department of Social Work, Tampere University in Finland.
Peter Scharff Smith, Department of Criminology and Sociology of law, University of Oslo.
Charlotte Mathiassen, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University.
Sigrún Sigurðardóttir, School of Health, Business and Natural Sciences, University of Akureyri.
Congratulations! How does it feel to receive an NSfK grant?
It is a fantastic feeling! This is a research area that all of us in the working group have been engaged with for many years, in different capacities, and where we have all encountered gaps in both knowledge and practice across the Nordic countries. Having the opportunity to now come together as a group specifically dedicated to advancing gender equality in the context of imprisonment feels both meaningful and important.
Nordic Research Network on Police Corruption
Nadja Kirchhoff Hestehave (NO)
Police corruption has received little research attention around the world. In Scandinavia, it is often assumed that police corruption barely exists. However, a major corruption case in Norway in 2020, involving former police leader Eirik Jensen, showed that this assumption is wrong. The case made clear that more research on police corruption is needed, even in high-trust Nordic societies.
This project aims to create a Nordic Research Network on Police Corruption. The network will be a platform for sharing knowledge, open discussion, and joint research across the Nordic countries. It also seeks to raise awareness of police corruption research both internationally and within the Nordic region.
Police corruption can cause serious harm. It can weaken the rule of law, damage democracy, increase inequality, and reduce public trust in the police. Trust is essential for people to cooperate with the police and follow the law. That is why strong police integrity is a key sign of a healthy democracy. Better scientific knowledge about police corruption is therefore crucial. We need to understand how corruption happens and what increases or reduces the risk of it in order to prevent it effectively.
Studying police corruption is difficult and each Nordic country has only a small number of researchers in this field. On their own, national research efforts are not adequate, but a Nordic research network can help by bringing researchers together.
First, the network will connect researchers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. This will create a stronger research community and make it possible to carry out comparative studies. Researchers can learn from differences and similarities in laws, police organisations, and systems of oversight across countries.
Second, the network will make better use of limited resources. Because Nordic countries share many cultural and social features, researchers can work together, share data, and publish joint studies. This improves research quality and avoids unnecessary duplication.
Third, the network will strengthen cooperation between researchers and police practitioners. Police corruption is a sensitive topic, but open dialogue is essential. The Nordic countries have strong traditions of cooperation between police and researchers, yet corruption has rarely been part of this work. The network will offer a safe and trusted space for exchange, helping turn research into practical knowledge that supports ethical policing and stronger integrity systems.
– Congratulations! How does it feel to receive an NSfK grant?
“I am very pleased to receive this grant from NSfK. I look much forward to bring together colleagues from Norwegian Police University College, Linköping University and Police University College Finland to work on an important but often overlooked topic: police corruption. The funding will support a seminar later this year, where we will share knowledge about existing research, discuss what we still need to learn, and explore ideas for joint projects. We will also talk about how researchers can work closely with police organisations and other partners. Our goal is to build an open and strong Nordic platform for cooperation and new research that helps protect police integrity and public trust.”