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Urban & Community Safety Research Group

Security and safety are human rights - to feel free from risk and fear of danger is crucial for all people and a prerequisite for modern society. A safe environment enables the most basic human needs - safe housing and a safe urban environment that allows free movement for all. This is clear from goals in the UN's Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development adopted by all UN member states in 2015.

Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels

In the Urban & Community Safety Research Group (FST), we work with a number of issues concerning the built and social environment and people's safety and security. A focus in our research is on how the urban environment can be designed to prevent crime and increase security in society. We examine, for example, crime and fear based on an interaction of factors such as gender, age, physical and psychological ability, socio-economic status or other individual characteristics. This may, for example, be about architecture and the construction of residential areas, but also about minor changes in an unsafe or crime-ridden place in a large or smaller, rural municipality. We also work with safety as a public health problem, linking the quality of the built environment to risks of, for example, falling among the elderly or suicide or people's access to blue light services.


The group includes a number of researchers, doctoral students and students at KTH and / or other universities / organizations. The group is currently active collaboration with The City of Stockholm / The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ), The Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF), the Swedish Transport Administration, Karolinska Institutet and Södertörn University.

The Urban & Community Safety Research Group (FST) is led by Prof Vania Ceccato.

Current research projects

  1.   Do place managers matter for safety? , Försäkringar, 2023-2025.
  2.   Assessing the importance of light conditions for safety in transit environments: Fieldwork experiments and virtual reality scenarios (VR) , Region Stockholm, 2023 - 2024.

  3.   Sensoring safety perceptions in and around Kista: A temporal perspective of place users , 2023 - 2024

  4. Rural perspectives on crime and justice:  A global analysis of victimization, safety and policing
  5. The effect of the station environment for crime and passenger safety , Trafikverket, 2021-2023 [in Swedish]

  6. AI, built environment and patterns of safety perceptions in Stockholm , the project is part of Senseable Stockholm Lab, 2021-2022

  7. Development of remote analysis data use for planning safe environments , FORMAS, 2020
  8. Under what circumstances does cannabis use and trafficking occur? , Region Stockholm, 2020-2021 [in Swedish]
  9. Promoting security in the library's environment: An evaluation of Högdalen's model , Brottsförebyggande rådet, BRÅ, 2020-2021 [in Swedish]
  10. Criticism, crime and threats against Swedish animal production , the Federation of Swedish Farmers, LRF, 2019-2021
  11. Blue Light in Green Surroundings: Challenges and opportunities for emergency and rescue services in Sweden , FORMAS, 2019-2022.
  12. Transit safety among college students: An international study , 2018-2020.