Lodgaard specializes in peace, foreign and security policy, but has also worked on developing country issues.
[1] He has since the 2000s written extensively on nuclear arms control and disarmament issues and on Middle East affairs.
Lodgaard served as director of United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) from 1992 to 1996 and of NUPI from 1997 to 2007.
In 2007 he stepped down as director and was succeeded by Jan Egeland, but continued there as senior research fellow.
[3] From 2010–2013 he was president of the Polytechnic Society, and from 2015 to 2018 chairman of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights.