CrimSL Associate Professor and Undergraduate Coordinator Matt Light, along with co-PI Professor Anne-Marie Singh of Toronto Metropolitan University and several colleagues in the US and Europe, was awarded a 2025-26 MINDS Targeted Engagement Grant by the Department of National Defence for “Home Guard Institutions and National Preparedness in the Baltic Republics and Ukraine."
Professor Light says, "The research project will investigate the development of home guard institutions in the three Baltic republics — Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — and Ukraine. Home guards are a distinctive Eastern European form of security institution that involves civilian volunteers who prepare for a range of law enforcement, military, and other emergency functions in the event of major disasters such as foreign invasion, environmental catastrophe, or other extreme events. They are of interest to Anglosphere criminologists because of their unusual blending of law enforcement and other security roles as well as the approach to citizens’ participation in national security planning. They have taken on heightened significance in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and fears of a wider war in Europe."
Light will also participate in a 2025-2029 European Commission Horizon Grant entitled "Sociology of Authoritarian Law: Insights from Central Asia" investigating the evolution of law in the authoritarian states of Central Asia. The grant provides three years of funding for CrimSL to admit a doctoral student who will work on issues of business and financial crime and official corruption in Central Asia.