Researcher
Niels Nagelhus Schia
Contactinfo and files
Summary
Niels Nagelhus Schia is a research professor specializing in the intersection of new technology and international relations. He leads the Research group on security and defense at NUPI, and co-manages the institute’s Research Centre for New Technology. With a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Oslo and a fellowship from the New School for Social Research (NSSR), Schia combines deep academic insight with practical experience in global policymaking.
Schia has chaired prominent initiatives such as the Norwegian government's expert group on AI, democracy, and elections (2024–2025), he served as co-coordinator for the reference group on Norway's role in the UN Security Council (2021–2022), and he has been the project leader of several larger research projects. A former Fulbright scholar and board member of the Fulbright Association in Norway, he is also a longstanding contributor to international conferences, United Nations discussions, and working groups.
Beyond his research, Schia is deeply engaged in shaping the global academic and policy landscape. He was co-editor of Internasjonal Politikk, the leading Scandinavian journal on international relations, for nearly a decade (2017–2025). He serves as a member of the Holberg Debate working group, the advisory council of the United Nations Association of Norway, and other forums dedicated to advancing knowledge and dialogue in his field.
Expertise
Education
2015 PhD, Social Antropology, University of Oslo
2004 Cand.polit., Social anthropology, University of Oslo
Work Experience
2022- Head of NUPI's Research group on security and defence
2017- Co-editor of the leading Scandinavian-language International Relations-journal Internasjonal Politikk
2015- Head, NUPI's Cyber Security Centre. 2010 Advisor, Civil Affairs, Policy Best Practices Services (PBPS), UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, New York HQ
2009 Visiting scholar at The New School for Social Research, New York, Leiv Eiriksson mobility programme (The Research Council of Norway) and Fulbright Scholar
2003- Research Assistant / Research Fellow / Senior Research Fellow/Research Professor, NUPI
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2012-2016 Board member Fulbright Alumni Association of Norway
2013-2016 Head of Scientific Committee for Fulbright annual research award
Aktivitet
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Clear all filtersDigital Supply Chain Dependency and Resilience
While a growing body of literature addresses how states increasingly aim to secure their digital domains and mitigate dependencies, less attention has been paid to how infrastructural and architectural configurations shape their ability to do so. This paper provides a novel approach to studying cyber security and digital dependencies, paying attention to how the everyday business decisions by private companies affect states’ ability to ensure security. Every mobile application relies on a multitude of microservices, many of which are provided by independent vendors and service providers operating through various infrastructural configurations across borders in an a-territorial global network. In this paper, we unpack such digital supply chains to examine the technical cross-border services, infrastructural configurations, and locations of various microservices on which popular mobile applications depend. We argue that these dependencies have differing effects on the resilience of digital technologies at the national level but that addressing these dependencies requires different and sometimes contradictory interventions. To study this phenomenon, we develop a methodology for exploring this phenomenon empirically by tracing and examining the dispersed and frequently implicit dependencies in some of the most widely used mobile applications. To analyse these dependencies, we record raw traffic streams at a point in time seen across various mobile applications. Subsequently locating these microservices geographically and to privately owned networks, our study maps dependencies in the case studies of Oslo, Barcelona, Paris, Zagreb, Mexico City, and Dublin.
A conflict-prone UN Security Council? How small states can navigate the UNSC in the new era of great power rivalry
Against the backdrop of intensified US-China great power competition and the deepening isolation of Russia by the West, the UN Security Council (UNSC) risks becoming increasingly paralyzed given the veto power prerogatives held by the five permanent council members. Indeed, we might see a return to the Cold War era when the UNSC was systematically prevented from pursuing its authorized mandate of maintaining international peace and security. While this seems to bode ill, especially for small states relying on the effectiveness of multilateral institutions such as the UNSC, it may also open up new opportunities for small states if they understand how to navigate, mediate or even bypass a conflict-prone UNSC. Ahead of Denmark’s prospective UNSC membership (2025-26), this DIIS seminar offers a small states perspective on the UN Security Council, drawing on recent experiences and insights from Norway’s membership of the council during 2021-22. Specifically, it asks what kind of instruments/objectives small states can successfully employ/pursue in the UNSC, and what we can learn from Norway’s current membership agenda?
Cyber defence and the EU’s cyber posture
What are the recently adopted EU cyber-related policies and how relevant are they in the current geopolitical context?
Internet governance and the UN in a multiplex world order era?
Over the last two decades Internet Governance (IG) has emerged as an increasingly complex and fraught field of policymaking involving both states and non-state actors on a multitude of arenas. Facing this complex field, the role of the United Nations (UN) in IG has been both varying and contested. While the UN has been discussing issues related to IG since the 1990s, disagreements on both substantive issues and where discussions ought to take place have intermittently resurfaced and remained relevant, but recent processes and challenges to the status quo asks questions about the direction going forward. In the UN, recently established processes aims to revamp the approach to IG, while the negotiations over a cybercrime convention, and the 2022 ITU plenipotentiary have made the long running contests between western and authoritarian states over this topic more visible. Broader trends and rising tensions globally raises questions not only about the future for the global nature of IG and the role of the UN in this, but also whether decoupling and alliances with like-minded states might become more dominant than global multilateral and multi-stakeholder channels, i.e a trend pointing towards a multiplex field of internet governance.1
The EU Navigating Multilateral Cooperation (NAVIGATOR)
How should the EU navigate the increasingly complex - and conflict-laden - institutional spaces of global governance to advance a rules-based international order? And what factors shou...
The subsea cable cut at Svalbard January 2022: What happened, what were the consequences, and how were they managed?
Svalbard is, like most other societies, largely dependent on an internet connection. The fiber connection on Svalbard consists of two separate subsea cables that connect Longyearbyen to the mainland. In some areas the cables were buried about two meters below the seabed, especially in areas where fishing is done, to “protect against destruction of the fishing fleet’s bottom trawling or anchoring of ships. (New version uploaded 18 January 2023)