Dr. Hardy is a cultural property criminologist, who studies (and blogs about) illicit trafficking of cultural objects, political violence against cultural property and other uses of cultural heritage in conflicts and crises, with an interest in open-source analysis of cultural property crime. He has worked for the American University of Rome, UNESCO, Koç University, ICOM and the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA). As an expert for ARCA, he participates in capacity-building training by UNESCO for law enforcement agents and cultural heritage professionals in the Middle East and North Africa.
Hardy will be based at the Norwegian Institute in Rome. His project runs for three years and will examine antiquities trafficking during political violence in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. It will explore the scale, organisation and practice of looting; interconnections of antiquities trafficking and art forgery with drugs trafficking, arms trafficking and organised crime; "conflict antiquities trafficking" of cultural objects to finance political violence; subsistence trafficking of cultural objects by asylum seekers; and politics and propaganda in relation to trafficking and policing. In so doing, it will support efforts to stem the flows of cultural goods out of crisis zones and illicit finances into conflict economies.