Research

In today’s digital age, access to technology and digital literacy is critical for full societal participation. Digital proficiency is crucial for both social and economic integration, for tasks like job searching, enrolling in educational opportunities, navigating healthcare systems, and even maintaining connections with family and friends.  While the Nordic countries are renowned for their high levels of digitalisation and high scores in digital competency indexes, certain groups remain excluded. Immigrant women, particularly newcomers, refugees, and those with weaker socio-economic background and limited national language proficiency, often face significant barriers to digital inclusion.   The Nordic countries have experienced substantial growth in their immigrant populations. Research suggests that female immigrants in these regions often face increased health challenges, limited access to healthcare, and lower employment rates compared to native-born residents.  Focus of the project  This research specifically focuses on immigrant women in the Nordic countries. Knowledge gaps persist regarding what the Nordic countries are doing for female immigrants to become digitally included, how these efforts differ between the Nordic countries, and what are the next steps needed to be taken to allow digital inclusion for all Nordic residents. The project focuses on understanding the barriers that prevent these women from fully accessing and engaging in the digital society. These barriers may include limitations in language proficiency or digital literacy, cultural differences in technology use, and unfamiliarity with the digital landscape.   The project will explore the current political landscape and existing initiatives for digital inclusion of immigrant women, as well as analyse user challenges, needs, and solutions. The research project seeks to identify best practices and effective strategies for integrating immigrant women into the digital society. By focusing on this specific population, this research project contributes valuable insights to the broader conversation on digital inclusion in the Nordic countries.  Aim, Research Questions &…

Migrants’ integration into host societies is a complex process involving economic, social, and civic dimensions. Economic integration means migrants achieve similar labor market outcomes as natives. Social integration involves participation in social life, including language acquisition, social interactions, and community involvement. Civic integration pertains to involvement in the civic and political life of the host country. The current project focuses on social and civic integration, which, despite their importance, are challenging to assess. Social and civic integration is crucial for the cohesion and stability of host societies. Effective social integration creates inclusive communities where diversity is valued, enabling migrants to fully contribute economically, socially, and culturally. This process is bi-directional, requiring adaptation from both migrants and the host society. The EU Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion emphasizes the importance of achieving comparable social and economic outcomes between migrants and natives. Research on social and civic integration shows varied results. For example, perceived discrimination, a key social cohesion indicator, has risen in the EU over the past decade, and second-generation migrants report higher ethnic discrimination than first-generation migrants. Socially integrated migrants can maximize productivity, contributing to economic growth, and civic integration fosters active citizenship, allowing migrants to influence decisions affecting their lives. Measuring social and civic integration is essential for evidence-based policymaking. Accurate indicators help evaluate the success of integration programs and identify areas for improvement, especially in regions like the Nordic countries with a strong commitment to inclusivity. These measurements also track progress over time and inform public understanding, helping design targeted interventions and enhancing academic research through cross-national comparisons. With their comprehensive welfare states, the Nordic countries offer a strong basis for comparative analysis of migrant integration. Despite shared characteristics, their immigrant integration strategies have diverged significantly, offering valuable insights into migration studies, including those focusing on social…

In highly digitized Nordic-Baltic societies, there are still significant geographical differences in terms of connectivity. Is that what you call a digital paradox? The N-B CONNECT project builds on the findings of the “Nordic-Baltic 5G Monitoring Tool" project, expanding its focus to examine broader societal impacts of connectivity.

Regional policy or policies for municipalities can play a key role in enhancing civil preparedness. They are part of implementing efficient solutions for sustainable green transitions, as well as ensuring the provision of food, raw materials, energy, and access to services to citizens, both in stable times and during crises. This project explores how regional policy can best contribute to ensuring civil preparedness and resilience in the Nordic regions. To achieve robust and resilient Nordic regions, structured collaboration between national authorities, regions, municipalities, businesses, and civil society is needed. Cooperation across local, regional – and sometimes also national – borders is essential to ensure security and good living conditions in Nordic cities, towns and sparsely populated rural areas. Analysing and understanding how Nordic countries address civil preparedness within subnational policies can also foster Nordic learning. The project aims to investigate how Nordic regional policy can best contribute to ensuring civil preparedness and robustness in Nordic regions during crisis periods. It will focus especially on policies and good practices addressing food security, energy provision, raw materials, and access to public services. As the regional policies and governance structures in the Nordic countries differ regarding roles and responsibilities, the study will also explore interactions between different governance levels and stakeholders in the managing crisis preparedness. Structured around three key stages, the project will: The findings and insights from the project will be summarised in a policy brief and a collection of local and regional good practices to enhance civil preparedness and resilience across the Nordic regions.

This project focuses on addressing the declining interest among young people in pursuing careers in the whole food value chain, including agriculture, livestock farming, fisheries, and forestry from farm and sea to fork, including related fields like processing, foraging, and hunting across the Nordic Region. Food production constitutes a significant value chain in all Nordic countries, with favourable conditions for agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, and further processing. Despite relatively high self-sufficiency influenced by climate conditions, access to marine areas, and suitable agricultural land, the sector faces challenges. There is a noticeable decline in youth interest in pursuing a career in those sectors, leading to fewer producers and an increased average age of 55.3 years in a predominantly male workforce. The project aims to identify innovative solutions to generate interest in careers within food production, covering agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, forestry, and other relevant parts of the value chain, from land and sea to table, including veterinary studies, butchery, and fish processing. The research questions focus on the challenges faced when choosing food production as a career path, how to best support existing and upcoming food producers, and what support mechanisms are necessary for fostering innovation and new thinking among new food producers, as well as improving existing support mechanisms. The project will involve a comprehensive approach, including forming a reference group of young people from relevant organisations to ensure youth involvement and validate the project’s findings. The results will be relevant for educational institutions, interest organisations, and policymakers within food production in the Nordic countries, contributing to understanding and addressing the challenges faced by the food production sector, thereby paving the way for new opportunities and inspiring the next generation of food producers.

Nordic countries have set up ambitious climate and energy targets and offshore renewable energy will play a key role in enabling the green transition in the Nordic Region. The European Green Deal underscores at the same time the importance of minimal harm to the environment and the contribution to nature conservation, with for example the EU Biodiversity strategy 2030 including more ambitious targets for protecting marine areas. Furthermore, our seas in the Nordic Region are also an increasingly important resource for food supply.  Offshore renewable energy, not least wind energy, is crucial for the green transition in the Nordic Region but its expansion poses challenges such as conflicts over space. Hence, there is an increasing need for enabling enhanced coexistence with other sectors, not least with blue food sectors such as fishing and aquaculture. Governance frameworks, in particular marine spatial planning, are crucial for managing conflicts, promoting collaboration, and for enabling possibilities for sustainable coexistence at sea.   The Nordic Council of Ministers have initiated several projects to address sustainable marine economy and coexistence issues. The “Green Meets Blue project”, financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers for Fisheries, Aquaculture, Agriculture, Food and Forestry (NCM FJLS) and running for two years (2024-2025), aims to contribute to a common knowledge base for the Nordic countries, by contributing with an increased understanding of sustainable coexistence between renewable energy (focusing on offshore wind energy) and marine food sectors (focusing on fisheries and aquaculture).    The project will give better insights on how Nordic countries and self-governing territories in the Nordic Region can effectively tackle potential conflicts between the green and blue sectors, promote synergies and better enable cooperation and collaboration. The project seeks to investigate existing conditions on how trade-offs, conflicts and synergies are managed between these sectors within marine spatial planning frameworks from a governance…

The “Education and young adults in Nordic rural areas” (EDYNORA) project addresses the crucial role of education in retaining and attracting young people in Nordic rural areas. Although education is vital for rural development, highly skilled individuals frequently migrate to urban areas in pursuit of better opportunities. Urbanization introduces imbalances such as population decline and economic disparities between urban and rural regions. This highlights the need to customize educational opportunities in rural areas to align with the needs of young people and local communities. The educational opportunities in regional centres are crucial for strengthening ties between young adults, regional labour markets, and local communities, potentially influencing young people’s decisions to stay or return to rural areas. EDYNORA investigates the impact of education, particularly higher education and vocational training, on the mobility decisions of youth and young adults. The goal is to enhance understanding and identify innovative approaches that align education with the needs and motivations of rural youth, ultimately strengthening their ties to local labour markets. The research aims to address three key questions: The project implementation involves surveys, gathering statistics, and exploring innovative approaches through focus group interviews and case studies across the Nordic countries and Åland.

On behalf of Nordic Council of Ministers, Nordregio conducts a pre-study for a Nordic tripartite forum on structural change and the green transition. The pre-study is based on interviews with government and labour market representatives across the Nordic countries and territories. The project will result in a report that will include good practice examples.

The aim of the project is to produce a report which will consist of three parts: one chapter looking back at the role of the common Nordic labour market agreement from 1954 for Nordic labour market integration, one chapter looking forward on the Nordic labour market integration and a final chapter containing an analysis and conclusions for a more integrated Nordic labour market. In the first chapter the role of the agreement for the overall Nordic cooperation will be analysed, as well as its role for the Nordic countries’ international competitiveness. Data on migration and commuting between the Nordic countries over the period will be examined, including characteristics of the mobile labour force (e.g. gender, age, citizenship, education, profession, business sector). The effects of the pandemic to maintain the common labour market, as well as expected long-term effects on labour market mobility across the Nordic national borders will be explored. The second chapter of the study will be more looking into future. We will start by giving an overview and status of supply and demand in the Nordic labour market.  We will then explore in which sectors and regions we find the largest potentials for a more integrated Nordic labour market. The current lack of labour and skills mis-match that is found in many sectors and regions and whether a more integrated Nordic labour market can contribute to solving those problems will be explored. The third and final part of the report will focus on how cornerstones of the common Nordic labour market can contribute to the fulfilment of the vision that the Nordic Region will be the world’s most sustainable and integrated region by 2030. This part will be developed in dialogue with stakeholders from the EK-A, employers’ organisations and trade unions (Council of Nordic Trade Unions), labour authorities…

The study aims to provide knowledge on how cross-border cooperation issues have been addressed in the regional development policy in Sweden and Norway, highlighting some key opportunities and challenges. The study is based on a review of key steering documents and qualitative interviews. It will result in recommendations on how cross-border cooperation between Sweden and Norway can be further strengthened. Cross-border cooperation provides important development opportunities for Sweden and Norway. Region Värmland has for a long time prioritized cooperation with Norway. Bilateral cooperation agreements have been signed with the Norwegian neighbouring counties and joint projects have been implemented. Region Värmland and its Norwegian neighbours contribute to maintaining trust and cohesion in the Nordic region by promoting common values such as culture, democracy, equality, inclusion, non-discrimination, and freedom of expression. The study is based on a review of the national steering documents for regional development, as well as qualitative interviews with representatives of relevant actors at the national and regional levels, academia, regional networks and organizations.

The Nordic region faces a significant labour shortage challenge in many countries and places. Recruiting skilled workers to fill vacant jobs has become a common regional development issue for rural and cross-border areas. The project aims to fill knowledge gaps about strategies to address rural labour shortage, regional variations, and sectors that are particularly affected. The post-pandemic labour shortage situation in Nordic rural areas can be attributed to several reasons, such as decreasing rural population numbers and the retirement of ageing permanent rural populations. Moreover, rapid social transformations, including the green transition, automation, and digitalization, have led to structural changes that impact the Nordic rural labour markets. To ensure sustainable rural areas where men, women, and youth thrive, it is crucial to match the necessary occupational groups with their competencies. There is a lack of understanding about the common challenges of labour shortage in Nordic rural areas, as well as the strategies and solutions currently in use. This project aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the situation by collecting statistical data, producing visualizations, and facilitating discussions to fill these knowledge gaps. A cross-Nordic workshop will be arranged to discuss nuances, strategies, and solutions to the issue. National experts will also contribute with country-specific knowledge about rural labour shortage strategies and regional variations. The results will be summarized and published in a report. The project will address the following questions: The project is expected to promote Nordic knowledge exchange and to have a positive impact on development strategies that ensure robust regions and labour markets in the Nordic region.

SUNREM explores how local labour markets in remote areas of the Nordic Region are impacted by global megatrends like demographic changes, growing tech needs, climate change, and globalisation There is already a shortage of workers and a mismatch between supply and demand in many remotely located job sectors. Facing an aging population and fewer young people entering the workforce, a loss of skilled workers to urbanisation, lacking infrastructure to support tech-changes, remote regions will struggle to survive without answers to the growing pile of difficult questions about the future. To add to this, climate change may have a disproportionate impact on remote areas. These places are often hit by more frequent and severe weather events that can disrupt economic activities and infrastructure. This in turn affects the security, safety and health of local communities. These global megatrends present new challenges but also new opportunities for remote labour markets, particularly in terms of transitioning to more sustainable and environmentally-friendly practices. What is SUNREM? This project specifically focuses on the green transition. Our aim is to expand knowledge about the correlated opportunities and challenges facing remote local labour markets in the region, as climate change continues to shake up otherwise stable sectors. The project takes its point of departure from case studies in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Åland, using both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. The project’s findings will be circulated through various outputs, including research reports, scientific articles, stakeholder engagement, and policy recommendations to promote sustainable labour market participation in remote areas. How SUNREM works? A collaboration of researchers from Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Åland come together to compare case studies, identify best practices and facilitate joint discussions on sustainable labour market participation in remote areas. Researchers are responsible for coordinating different work packages, ensuring close cooperation and integration throughout…

The overall aim of the project is to give a Nordic knowledge base on the role of employers in the process of integrating refugees and migrants in the labour market. The project will further highlight some promising examples of when the integration process has been successful. Labour market participation is central in the integration process of refugees and migrants. Research shows that it is difficult for refugees and migrants to find jobs, especially for low-skilled, non-EU born and women. The labour market integration of people born outside the EU is on average about 17 percentage points lower than that of people born in the EU. The recent crises, the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have not improved the situation. At the same time, the Nordic countries are suffering from labour shortages and are trying to attract hands and brains from abroad. Successful integration of migrants in the labour market presents an opportunity for our societies. Employers have an important role to play in integration. This project examines the status of this role in the Nordic countries, addressing the following questions: To what extent have companies, organisations and other employers hired people with an immigrant background? What are their experiences of the benefits and obstacles? To what extent is discrimination against immigrants widespread in the labour market and workplace? What can the governments and municipalities do to support companies in employing migrants? To provide a reply to these questions, the project will be articulated in three main steps. A thorough literature review will explore benefits and challenges experienced by employers in the Nordic region in the integration process of migrants and refugees. Then, based on interviews with employers and competent authorities, the project will also present concrete examples of promising practices and policies to increase labour market integration. Finally,…

Natural and human-induced disasters are becoming increasingly extreme and complex, exacerbated by the impacts of climate change in our interlinked economies, and do not respect national borders. This project aims to contribute to strengthening capacities in border areas for disaster risk management. Its overall objective is to improve the tools at the disposal of the stakeholders for managing cross-border risks, both natural and man-made. Unprecedented drought, forest fires, floods, the COVID pandemic and geopolitical tensions are among the examples of adverse events that have caused the devastation of human life, property, environment and cultural heritage. The rapidly changing risk landscape implies that civil protection faces an increasingly diverse range of risks and impacts, and needs to work with an increasingly wider range of authorities, services and partners, across sectoral, geographical and jurisdictional boundaries. The project has the following specific objectives: The best examples of good practices will be selected for further analysis as case studies, so that they serve as an inspiration for other countries, regions and local authorities. With regards to geographical scope, the project will cover 43 internal land borders in the EU, 4 maritime borders and 6 borders in candidate countries. The study covers 12 main types of risks: five natural, two related to health and diseases and five man-made. Nordregio is in charge of the country-level analyses for Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, as well as producing maps relevant to cross-border territories.

Recent Nordregio studies show a difference in migration intensities and patterns between adults in their 20s and 30s. The aim of the project is to understand the migration drivers from the university towns and urban areas in the Nordic region, targeting adults in their early careers. The project will put an emphasis on urban-to-rural migration, addressing cross-cutting themes such as gender and the green transition.  It is no surprise that the net migration to university towns and urban areas is positive for people in their 20s while the migration patterns of people in their 30s are much more diverse. But where do young people migrate to after their studies?   Data shows that  people in their „early career“ leave capitals and university towns and move to rural and intermediate municipalities that are close to larger urban municipalities, but also some more peripheral   How could migration trends be supported and enhanced through regional development policy? By understanding the migration drivers of young people, regional actors could better prepare and respond to potential opportunities of positive migration flow to rural and remote areas. To support these opportunities for Nordic regional development, the project will explore the determinants of migration in the Nordic region and seek to identify the motives and drivers of early-career urban-to-rural migration.                    This research project builds on and contributes to several currently running Thematic Group projects examining migration and mobility in the Nordic countries, including the projects Re-Start Competence Mobility in the Nordic Region (Lundgren et al, 2021-2024), and Remote Work and Multilocality (Linda Randall et al, 2021-2024). The project is funded by the Nordic Thematic Group for Green, Innovative and Resilient Regions (2021-2024). 

The project’s starting point is the current out-migration and population decline facing many rural municipalities. Smart adaptation refers to approaches that public authorities take to adapt their activities to changes in population. The project aims first to identify and describe smart adaptation strategies in rural governance across the Nordic region, both regarding written documents and concrete policy decisions. Secondly, the project facilitates Nordic learning and knowledge sharing between municipalities and other actors working with rural governance.  The research questions addressed include: The project may also reflect on smart adaptation strategies to manage other demographic changes, such as spatially concentrated population fluctuations or shocks. The project will develop a working paper around smart adaptation, including how it is defined and how it has been addressed in previous studies. The research team will also identify Nordic municipalities working with smart adaptation strategies to manage long-term population shrinkage. These shall serve as cases to study smart adaptation from a Nordic lens. The selected municipalities will then participate in and contribute to five workshops arranged (one) in each Nordic country to discuss how they work with smart adaptation, their experiences, and what others can learn. Experts such as researchers, local and regional authorities associations, and policy officials at the national level will also be recruited to the workshops. Representatives from Nordic municipalities and regions will also be invited to a Nordic workshop to learn about smart adaptation strategies and practices and participate in discussions about smart adaptation. The project will publish a policy brief with policy recommendations to local and national-level politicians. A scientific article will also be submitted to a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal. The academic article is to share the results with an academic audience and ensure that the project results can inspire future studies and interact with the international research audience to add to the…

Recent Nordregio studies show that all Nordic countries aim for sustainable tourism development in their national strategies. Many ongoing Nordic tourism studies focus especially on economic and environmental aspects of sustainable tourism. This research however aims to look further into the concept of sustainable tourism development from a sociocultural perspective. The project will examine what the Nordic countries consider social and cultural effects in tourism development to be, and look into which possible indicators are used to measure the social dimension of sustainability in the ongoing quest of the Nordic countries for sustainable tourism development. This will include for example analysing tourism contributions and costs for regions and more rural areas, effects on employment, working conditions, provision of services, culture and arts, preservation of heritage, perception and preservation of nature, transport, housing and general tolerance towards tourism. This project will therefore produce a knowledge overview of how social and cultural aspects are considered in Nordic tourism development, both on a national level as well as regional and local levels. This will include a policy overview to pinpoint in which ways the social dimension of sustainable tourism development is being considered, and if and how, indicators are used to illustrate positive and negative impacts on the social and cultural dimensions of sustainable tourism. Also, how social and cultural identities are used to support sustainable tourism will be explored in the project. The in-depth qualitative part of the study would focus on social aspects of tourism such as the value creation of the tourism industry, the insecurity of the often very seasonality of tourism work, the role of tourism jobs as entry-level work and the lower-educated, employment of migrant workers in tourism-related industries and benefits and costs of tourism for societies beyond economic and environmental aspects.

The project aims to better understand what collaborative regional leadership looks like within a Nordic context. The concept of regional leadership is about examining how sub-national level institutions and stakeholders collaborate together to drive regional growth, solve local challenges and maximize opportunities. This research project builds on several previous Thematic Group projects examining the role of regions in Nordic policymaking. Contextually, the topic is important, as institutional and stakeholder collaborations will become more significant for coping with financial cuts at regional and local levels, meeting socio-economic challenges caused by ongoing crises, and effectively implementing social, green and smart transitions. The Collaborative Regional Leadership project intends to provide policymakers and practitioners with new knowledge, tools and best practices on how to implement effective regional and local stakeholder collaborations.

Globally, more and more people are opening their eyes to the role of the bicycle in the fight for a green and healthy future. A new UN resolution has proclaimed the bicycle as a tool to combat the climate crisis. Knowledge sharing across countries is an essential element in using the bicycle to strengthen the green transition for the transport sector in the Nordic countries. Planners across the Nordic Region have begun to share knowledge in informal networks, which currently rely on personal relationships and voluntary resources, but a formal network has yet to be established.  The purpose of the Nordic Cycle Power Network is to activate a knowledge-sharing network among municipal and regional planners working to improve conditions for cycling. The network will identify measures that can be implemented in the Nordic Region to facilitate and enable a significant increase in biking trips to replace car use and drive down CO2 emissions from land-based transport.  Through several thematic workshops and study visits, the network will exchange knowledge that can strengthen municipal and regional bicycle strategies. The project will also produce a Nordic Cycling Agenda to summarise findings from the workshops and share good practices beyond the network. The project cooperates with the European Cyclist Federation in Belgium to facilitate network activities and disseminate results throughout Europe and beyond. 

This project will support the implementation of the updated release of the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR) in 2023 and provide policymakers with suggestions for policies and interventions promoting a transition towards more sustainable and healthy diets. Current consumption patterns in the Nordic region do not meet national dietary guidelines or sustainability targets, and people need to adjust their diets for a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle. As part of the Nordic Vision project Healthy and Sustainable Food Systems, the Nordic Council of Ministers EK-FJLS (Livs) cooperates with Nordregio to deliver a research project about the Nordic food environments and behavior change for better diets. The purpose of the research project is to support the implementation of the updated release of the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR) in 2023 and to understand how Nordic food environments need to change for the Nordic population to make healthy and sustainable food choices in their everyday life. The project provides a knowledge base of effective policies that could be implemented in the Nordic countries to generate the required structural changes to make sustainable and healthy consumption easier. The project will explore the following questions:   Close collaboration with the Nordic Council of Minister’s secretariat and the FJLS sector will enhance synergies and continuous monitoring. The studies will also consider how Nordic citizens’ background, education, and socioeconomic status affect their choices within a food environment. By promoting sustainable and healthy food systems, the project will contribute to good, equal, and secure health and welfare for all.