In the Baltic Sea, communication cables between the Nordic and Baltic countries have been cut several times recently. Foreign powers are suspected of being behind the actions. Foreign powers are also suspected of enlisting the help of criminal networks to carry out acts of sabotage. In recent years, violent gang criminals have begun to operate across national borders in the Nordic region.
In addition, we live with the constant threat of terrorist attacks carried out by individuals or groups. Both public authorities and private organisations are constantly exposed to cyber attacks. Fake news is spread by individuals, organisations and state actors with the aim of undermining trust in authorities, social cohesion and thus democracy, as in Romania, where the results of the first round of the presidential election had to be annulled due to Russian interference.
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.
„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,” says Arne Flåøyen, Director of NordForsk.
Both hybrid attacks themselves and the measures that will be implemented to protect against hybrid attacks could affect individual citizens. Through the projects to be funded in this call, it is hoped to gain more knowledge about how the security and integrity of the individual citizen is affected.
„The Nordic and Baltic countries are small individually, but as the attacks on the communication cables in the Baltic Sea show, we are closely connected. Because of the geographical proximity, political and institutional co-operation and cultural commonalities in the region, it makes sense to collaborate on preparedness against hybrid threats in the Nordic and Baltic countries. By creating a joint Nordic-Baltic arena for research on hybrid threats, it is expected that the quality of the research will improve and the relevance and applicability of the results will increase,” says Arne Flåøyen.
Researchers in all Nordic countries as well as Estonia and Lithuania can receive funding through the call, but only researchers in countries that have contributed money to the joint Nordic pot can be project leaders. This means that, as things stand at present, Danish researchers cannot apply as project leaders, but can only participate as partners in the projects.
Read the pre-announcement: Antagonistic threats challenging Nordic-Baltic societal security.
