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…

At the heart of Transform-IntegrateNBS is a new "integrative lab" method, tested across six case studies in Norway, Poland, Spain, and Sweden. The method is designed to address complex, interconnected socio-environmental challenges while ensuring the equitable involvement of all relevant governing bodies and societal stakeholders. To overcome the significant challenges facing global envornments our project suggests a comprehensive strategy to implement NbS by studying 1) multiple interconnected challenges, 2) government entities and the stakeholders involved and affected by decision making, and 3) different ways society and individuals can change.

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.

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…

ILLUQ is the Inuvialuktun word for partner and cuts to the heart of this interdisciplinary project. Through a wide partnership it provides an holistic assessment of the impacts of permafrost thaw on the health of humans, animals and ecosystems. Accelerating permafrost thaw in the Arctic drastically changes the ecosystem as a whole, which, in turn, impacts the everyday life of local communities and Indigenous populations. Yet many of the phenomena reported in the scientific literature and media are treated in isolation from other social, economic or cultural processes.   ILLUQ specifically focuses on the impact of climate change on populations living on permafrost in the Arctic. It targets the missing link between studies performed by scientists, engineers and consultants in local communities and solutions with local stake- and rightsholders. It focusing on the long-term implications of decision-making in the context of permafrost thaw, a time frame generally overlooked in existing governance frameworks. As such, ILLUQ will provide the first stake- and rightsholder driven assessment of the impacts of permafrost thaw on pollution, health and ecosystem services in the Arctic.  Work Packages Activities will be articulated around nine interlinked work packages with the first five covering the provisioning, regulating, and cultural elements of ecosystem services, and another summarising and synthesising the knowledge gained. In each of these five first work packages, the work starts with stakeholder engagement to set the stage for participatory research. Each of these work packages concludes with a task focused on One Health impacts related to the specific ecosystem services. Another work package synthesizes the knowledge gained on One Health in the earlier work packages and makes it available to local and European stakeholders. A further one synthesizes the results from participatory research and devises solutions (including nature-based solutions) together with local stake- and rightsholders. The final work…

ESPON TERRES aims to unpack territorial resilience to support spatial planning and urban development, strengthening the absorptive, adaptive and transformational governance capacities of European regions in the context of long-term multi-crisis trajectories. The project aims to guide the future generation of EU Cohesion and sectoral policies by providing a conceptual and analytical framework for characterising “territorial resilience” as a multi-dimensional and dynamic concept. The notion of territorial resilience developed in ESPON TERRES overcomes current policy paradigms to emphasize a lasting shift towards learning capacities, institutional innovation, cultural norms, and community values. Regional resilience is understood as a capacity not just to absorb and adapt to external shocks (‘bouncing back’ perspective) but also to address the transformational capabilities to deal with and be ready for both present and impending crises (‘bouncing forwards’ approach). These principles contribute to improving the understanding and to unlocking the opportunities implicit in the concept of territorial resilience, overcoming policy and research siloes through fruitful dialogue among researchers (the scientific level), policy-makers (the normative level) and practitioners (the operational level). The specific activities in the ESPON TERRES project are as follows:

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.

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…

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.

The HORIZON EUROPE project Democratising jUst Sustainability Transitions (DUST) aims to develop new participatory instruments in sustainability transitions that enhance citizen participation and trust in democratic governance. It aims to recognise the voices of least-engaged communities by focusing on regions dependent on energy-intensive industries which will be affected by sustainability transitions. We will conduct research using mixed methods in 8 case study regions in Europe, including Region Gotland and Region Norrbotten in Sweden, to investigate the factors enhancing or hindering citizen participation. Participatory experiments will also be conducted in 4 of the case study regions where just sustainability transitions pose great challenges. In these experiments the project will test the potential of innovative design-led territorial and digital tools for citizen participation. The project outputs will be a collection of evidence-based instruments, methods, good practices, and knowledge packages for a comprehensive and just transformation.  Nordregio is responsible for the implementation of the UNESCO futures literacy lab, an innovative participatory tool that give citizens the opportunity to reframe future developments via new anticipatory assumptions and questions on just sustainability transitions. Participants discuss alternative future scenarios for transitions, which will then inform regional designs and forecast the impact of ongoing and upcoming sustainability transition measures. The case of Norrbotten will be developed in close collaboration with the partner Hela Sverige Ska Leva Norrbotten as well as national, regional and local governance bodies and other civil society organisations.  

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. 

On increasingly strained housing markets, affordable housing development has become a key concern in housing policy in the Nordic countries. Public policy explicitly states that new housing should be provided in many price and rent segments with the aim of reaching wider shares of the population, as well as contributing to socially mixed neighborhoods. In the project Strategic Housing, we wish to generate new knowledge on measuring housing market inclusiveness and use this to understand local housing market dynamics and to stimulate cities to develop a more active and comprehensive housing policy. The larger part of the project focus on Norwegian cities and towns, but Nordregio’s share in the project is an outlook on neighboring countries and how they plan for a more inclusive housing supply. One subproject investigates cities’ involvement with the housing needs of mid-income groups. Mid-income households are often depicted as the real losers when it comes to finding new housing as they can neither afford housing on market terms nor are entitled to public support. Here, we take a look at if, how and why the cities of Copenhagen, Hamburg, Oslo and Stockholm plan to expand housing supply attainable to mid-income groups. In a second subproject, municipal requirements to include affordable housing in otherwise market-rate housing developments are investigated. The very different forms such requirements take in Denmark, Norway and Sweden are described and analyzed in relation to housing and planning systems. In the third sub-project, we analyse two shared ownership and two cooperative rental models from legal and economic perspectives to see to what extent, and subject to what risks, these intermediary tenures add to housing opportunities of lower and mid-income groups. External articles published in the project: Full article: Contrasting inclusionary housing initiatives in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway: how the past shapes the present…

For most of the Nordic countries fisheries and aquaculture are important economic sectors. The blue fields of the seas in the Nordic Region are however a sector traditionally male-dominated and statistics on gender ratio and female presence reveal gender-segregated labour market. The Nordic partners observe this gender imbalance in the sector as problematic on many levels. This motivates the project Laks og ligestilling, in identifying the need to uncover reasons for what contributes to the gender imbalance. This project analyses what hinders or promotes improved gender balance in fisheries and aquaculture in the Nordic Region. The project aims to contribute to improved knowledge basis on equality questions in fisheries and aquaculture, and other new emerging blue economies across the Nordic countries. Parallelly it is to raise increased awareness of the need for more equal gender balance in the business and the recruitment of female skills. More specifically the project research output shall improve knowledge of which measures have proved effective in increasing gender equality within the sector. On the basis of the comparative analysis, we aim to build a knowledge basis for useful competence and exchange of experience. Lastly, the result from the comparative research will be presented in policy recommendations on measures likely to increase recruitment of women both as owners and practitioners in the sector. The project’s focus is to uncover active actions and measures that contribute to increased gender equality and more balanced representation of both males and females. Also to generate an overview of existing statistics on gender ration among employees and employers in the fisheries and aquaculture sector and to identify gaps across division of labour and strata within the sector. Project MilestonesM1: Statistical collection and harmonization of data to make comparative – Value Chain analysis for Blue Bioeconomy from gender perspective – and stakeholder…

This project will contribute to an inclusive digital transition in the Nordic-Baltic societies by promoting collaboration, dialogue, and knowledge sharing between practitioners and policymakers in the different countries and autonomous territories. The Nordic and Baltic societies are among the most advanced in Europe on digitalisation and they continually rank high on the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI). Digital literacy, digital skills and competences are all necessary to participate in the digital economy and society. With increased digitalisation, there is a risk that some groups lacking certain skills could be excluded, among these are elderly people, people with disabilities, persons with low or no education, young people between 15-25 as this group often struggle with communicating digitally with the public sector , immigrants that lack language skills, and people residing in rural areas. Digital exclusion can result in consequences such as people not having access to and receiving public services, lack of information about public services, social inequality, and social exclusion. Furthermore, COVID-19 has transformed the everyday lives of our citizens and businesses, increasing the importance of accessible, reliable, and usable digital public services. The project will develop a clear understanding of the key aspects that make up digital inclusion in the Nordic-Baltic region, including the potential effects of these aspects on different societal groups. The methods used will be both qualitative and quantitative such as data collection, literature review, surveys, case studies and interviews as well as seminars with networks of digitally vulnerable groups. An important part of this project is the close collaboration with a Nordic-Baltic reference group on digital inclusion, public agencies, civil society groups, and other research projects working with digital inclusion.   Furthermore, the project will develop maps that can visualise the status on access and capability in the Nordic-Baltic region and publish…

The Nordic countries have ambitious plans to turn electric aviation into a reality in the Nordic countries in the near future. But how would this impact regions and local communities? This project​ analyses the effects of electric aviation on Nordic regional development. The Nordic regions share similar challenges of accessibility and mobility for remote and rural regions. Since the first-generation electric airplanes are small and have a limited range, they would suit many remote areas in Nordic Region. The time saved using electric aviation instead of car or rail can be extensive because of the geographies of water and mountains you must cross or pass. The increased mobility and accessibility have the potential of creating effects in regions and local communities, such as access to public services, and the establishment of companies or job opportunities. The effects can, however also be negative for some communities since increased accessibility also provides the possibility to leave the areas for work or education in other regions. Further, electric aviation can contribute to the green transition. The project investigates the effects on regions and local communities of implementing electric aviation. It will also contribute to the discussion of electric aviation as a sustainable transport mode for remote regions and highlight the contribution to Nordic mobility and sustainability. The study will explore the following research questions:​ Nordregio will lead the study in collaboration with Nordic Energy Research and the University of Akureyri​ between May 2022 and December 2024.

Previous research points to institutional barriers hampering the planning of cross-border transport infrastructure in the Nordics. This project aims to increase knowledge of the institutional conditions for the development of a more coordinated transport planning in the Nordic region. The project will identify obstacles, point out opportunities and propose measures that facilitate coordination of transport infrastructure planning across national borders. This research project is a collaboration between Nordregio and Umeå University, financed by The Swedish Transportation Administration (Trafikverket). It consists of document studies and interviews with key stakeholders. The project includes a steering group from the Transport Administration and a academic reference group with researchers from Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. To get in-depth knowledge, three case studies will be conducted, studying three different cross-border transport infrastructure planning objects; the Helsingborg-Helsingør fixed link (HH), the Stockholm-Oslo railway connection and the road and ferry connection stretching from Mo-i-Rana in Norway via Umeå in Sweden and over to Vasa in Finland.

Not Just a Green Transition – Examining the path towards a socially just green transition in the Nordic Region (short name: NJUST) contributes to a just transition towards a climate neutral Nordic Region. The researchers explore perceptions among those experiencing the change first-hand and focus on how to best support the Nordic people and especially potentially vulnerable groups, primarily unemployed and those at risk of unemployment as well as older adults, children and persons with disabilities. Towards a strong knowledge base and policy relevanceThe starting point will be to create a knowledge base where a literature review, policy review and analyses of spatial and socio-economic effects of green transition policies will be conducted. The project will send out surveys and perform sentiment analyses to explore how people experience the ongoing green transition on an individual level. Based on the knowledge base, a policy proposal toolbox will be created and disseminated to the relevant policymakers across the Nordic countries and self-governing regions. The toolbox shall contain policies and measures to reduce the potentially negative spatial and social impacts of the green transition. All publications will be openly available on Nordregio’s website. A big collaboration effort: focus groups and dialogue meetings to validate the resultsThe project interacts with labour market representatives, unions and civil society actors, invites vulnerable group representatives to join focus groups and dialogue meetings and reaches out to citizens via surveys. Nordic and national policymakers are the main target group for the project results and special communication efforts will be channelled to these groups. NJUST invites all stakeholders annually to join an open event to share and build knowledge. The first event takes place in August 2022 and more information will be available here during the spring. The NJUST project works closely and reports to several Committees of Senior…

Nordic municipal and regional authorities play a central role in delivering key public services in areas, such as, health, education, and social care. Yet, public authorities have faced several challenges, including demographic change caused by an aging population and uneven population development, lack of access to labor force and adequate skills, long periods of austerity after the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 Pandemic. Public service delivery trends in the Nordics points to the increasing spatial concentration of physical services as well as the increase of web-based and digital solutions. Based in dialogue with the Nordic thematic group for Green and Inclusive Rural Development, which is a part of the Nordic Co-operation Programme for Regional Development and Planning, the objective of this project is to analyse how essential service needs for different types of societal groups and ruralities can be understood and defined, and how solutions to rural service provision challenges can be organized. It shall also address what role public policies play to ensure that adequate actions are in place for ensuring good rural public or co-created services. Finally, the project shall develop and share valuable input to policymakers and planners at national, regional, local, and cross-border level on safe, secure and trusted service delivery models and partnerships across different Nordic rural and sparsely populated communities. The project tasks are outlined as following: Step 1 of the project includes a desk study on what are essential future services for different societal groups in Nordic ruralities. The essential service needs will be compared with existing rural development policies, and perspectives from national and regional experts, to identify prioritisations and policy improvements. This will result in a report on essential services in the Nordic Region. Step 2 will map Nordic service provision, including methods and tools used for cooperation and involvement…

This project aims to explore labour market mobility and the possibility of re-starting and enhancing it in the Nordic region. The core research question is in which regions and sectors we find the largest cross-border labour market mobility. The Nordic Council of Ministers’ vision for the Nordic Region is to become the world’s most sustainable and integrated region by 2030. The vision indicates substantial flows of people, goods and knowledge across the Nordic borders. But during the past years, the pandemic has influenced cross-border mobility negatively. The research questions in the project are: Quantitative and qualitative methods, including case studies in different regions, will be used in the project. The project involves a reference group with informants and stakeholders from Info Norden and cross-border regions.