INSTITUTT FOR FREDSFORSKNING STIFTELSE

– PRIO –

The Institutt For Fredsforskning Stiftelse – PRIO was first established in 1959, and is a key institution within peace research with a primary mission to conduct high-quality academic research on conditions for peaceful relations between states, groups and people. PRIO is an independent and international institute located in central Oslo, housing several thematic research groups. Within PRIO, the Security Research Group has been coordinator of three FP7 projects and partner in eight other projects dealing with various security topics, such as societal security, ethical and rights-related dimensions of security policies, privacy and personal data protection, crisis management and resilience. The researchers in the Security Research Group come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, such as political science, international relations, law, sociology, war and peace studies, philosophy, cultural studies, and criminology. Methodologically, the group focuses on qualitative research such as interviews, document analyses and case studies. It also has also developed methodologies to integrate ethical, rights-related and other aspects of societal security into the development of tools for security governance. The group takes a critical approach to security, drawing on governmentality studies and genealogy, conceptual and cultural history, political philosophy, media studies, and social theory, and endorsing self-reflective and non-Euro-centric perspectives.