Over the years, the Hasselblad Foundation has awarded many stipends for implementation of projects in photography, both purely theoretical research and artistic development projects. Between 1998 and 2003 funding was allocated to a major project: "Women Photographers - European Experience," carried out in collaboration between the Department of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Gothenburg and the Hasselblad Center. The project gave rise to an exhibition shown at the Hasselblad Center in 2003. It later toured to the Museum of Work in Norrköping, the  museum Jamtli in Östersund and the Västerås Art Museum. The book Women Photographers - European Experience was published in 2004, as volume 15 of Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Gothenburg Studies in Art and Architecture.

The largest collection of photographs among the Hasselblad Foundation's collections is that of South African photographer Ernest Cole (1940–1990). This collection includes a broad variety of Cole’s extensive production and it clearly shows his skills as a photographer. Inspired by poets, writers, artists and musicians, and with an astonishing sensibility for form and how to use natural light he has made one of the finest and most comprehensive documentations ever. The pictures are really stunning and touching.
One of our ongoing research projects is on Ernest Cole. The aim of the project is to make his life and works public in the form of a touring exhibition and a book. The exhibition tour will start at Johannesburg Art Gallery in September 2010.