gern (groupement europeen de recherches sur les normativites) is a large consortium of scientific researchers in the domain of deviance and social control, more precisely studying delinquency, penal institutions, public policies of security and the importance of penal questions in society. today the gern is a scientific network present in ten european countries and abroad, uniting researchers of different disciplines. each year the gern organizes a doctoral summer school, giving phd students from the consortium the opportunity to present and discuss their ongoing projects and research results as well as meet young and senior researchers. with the inauguration of this research paper series, the gern intends to monitor and disseminate cutting-edge studies into european security issues, reflecting the design and result of doctoral research in the framework of the gern. the series provides an excellent platform from which to survey key emergent topics in the field. with this series, the editors and authors are contributing to a better understanding of contemporary questions, presenting recent research results and scientific reflection, by devising new approaches and by re-evaluating the heritage of social sciences in this domain. it implies openness concerning other disciplines and to the normative questions arising from the constructions of deviance and crime, the commission of criminal acts, its consequences and its development, as well as the application of deviance categories and the social or formal reaction to it by actors in the criminal justice system and beyond. this edited publication is the 7th volume of the gern research paper series stemming from the annual doctoral summer school that took place in ghent (belgium) in 2022 and was co-organized by the gern and the institute for international research on criminal policy, ghent university. its topic was “making strategic choices in social science research”. this volume also includes two contributions from the gern summer school that took place in porto (portugal) in 2019, co-organized by gern and the university of porto, which topic was “emerging trends in criminology”.