My research focuses on children and armed conflict, decision-making in insurgency, and the human consequences of war. I am specifically interested in how conflicts affect children's education and life opportunities, and why education is targeted in conflicts. I combine my background in political science and pedagogy with perspectives from other disciplines and use statistical and geospatial methods.
Kristine Helskog
Doctoral student at University of Oxford
Email: krihel@prio.org
Website: www.kristinehelskog.com
Interests and experience
My current research primarily focuses on the effects of armed conflict on educational outcomes and why non-state armed groups perpetrate attacks on education in civil wars. I specialize in computational methods and geospatial analysis, with a regional focus on the developing world, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa.
Themes and topics
- Conflict-related attacks on education
- Children and armed conflict
- Decision-making in insurgency
- Human and socioeconomic consequences of war
Methods
- GIS and spatial data analysis
- Quantitative methods and spatial statistics
- Survey and text data
- Machine learning approaches
Projects
- Conflict-related attacks on education in sub-Saharan Africa and children's lost life opportunities (EdAttack)
- Research assistant: contributed to machine learning data collection, research communication (articles, conference presentations, public speaking), and writing my MA thesis.
- Peace Science Infrastructure (PSI)
- Research assistant: contributed to developing PRIO-GRID 3.0 as an R package.
Previous projects
- Elite Political Dynamics in Electoral Autocracies (ELITE)
- Conflict Trends
Education
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Politics, University of Oxford (ongoing)
- Education under attack: Understanding the dynamics behind conflict-related attacks on education (AoE)
- Master's Degree in Political Science, University of Oslo
- When Schools Become Targets: Why Some Armed Groups Attack Education
- Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, University of Oslo
- Effectiveness of aid on educational dropout in post-genocide
- Bachelor's Degree in Pedagogy, University of Oslo
Languages English, Norwegian
Technical R, ArcGIS, QGIS, LaTeX, Git, SQL
Latest publications
Children's schooling in the context of attacks on education: Evidence from Nigeria
Journal article in Conflict Management and Peace Science
Effectiveness of aid on educational dropout in post-Genocide Rwanda
Journal article in International Journal of Educational Development
Children Affected by Armed Conflict, 1990–2022
Conflict Trends
Latest news
Gløbius Award for 2026 goes to Ole Magnus Gaalaas-Hansen
Ole Magnus Gaalaas-Hansen has won the 2026 Gløbius Award for his Master's thesis in Political Science, titled Foreign Experts in Autocratic Media: A Study of Modern Russian Propaganda Strategies.
PRIO-GRID 3.0 beta launches: A new generation of spatial data infrastructure
Today, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) released the beta version of PRIO-GRID 3.0, a major redevelopment of its widely used infrastructure for integrating and analyzing spatial data.
The Crown Prince of Norway visits the Peace Research Institute Oslo
His Royal Highness Crown Prince Haakon of Norway visited PRIO today for a series of briefings on pressing global challenges, including developments in the Middle East, emerging technologies, migration and the human consequences of war.
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