Kick-off for the Future of Work in Vilnius

To qualify for NordForsk funding, at least three Nordic countries must participate and other research bodies must contribute two thirds of the funding for each project. So there are five projects with a total funding amount of 46 million kroner (€3.93m), a considerable sum within the field of labour research.

Lithuania participates and contributes as much as the Nordic countries. Since independence in 1990, Lithuania has been focused on developing its research. 

The bars show each country's 2022 R&D investment. Blue bars represent millions of dollars, orange bars represent share of GDP. Source: OECD 

With 2.8 million inhabitants, Lithuania’s research investments in dollars are just over twice as much as that of Iceland, according to the OECD. In terms of the share of GDP, the gap to the Nordic countries is not as large. 

“We try to balance our national needs with the fact that the research is becoming increasingly international,” said Jurgita Verbickienė from the Research Council of Lithuania as she opened the meeting.   

Jurgita Verbickienė, professor of history and head of project at the Research Council of Lithuania.

It was held at Talent Garden Vilnius, which describes itself as “a unique facility located in the Oldtown with flexible workspaces and digital skills training for over 230 members”. That was a good fit since hybrid and flexible workplaces are themes in several of the projects.

In the research grant announcement, there was an opportunity to apply for funds to study the situation of Lithuanian labour migration after the pandemic. Lithuanian labour has become an important factor in several Nordic countries. In both Norway and Iceland, Lithuanians now make up the second-largest immigrant group.

However, the Research Council of Lithuania chose to fund the AGE-SWAP project instead, which looks at how to convince older people to remain in the labour market, as well as REMOTE-flex, which looks at hybrid working. 

There is a simple explanation for this.

“Lithuania and Latvia have the worst demographic development of all EU countries when it comes to the labour market,” said Antanas Kairys from the Department of Psychology at Vilnius University. They participate in the project alongside researchers from Sweden and Iceland.

A shrinking labour force

He quoted EU statistics predicting the number of Lithuanians aged between 20 and 64 will fall by nearly 30 per cent by 2045.  

Antanas Kairys from the Department of Psychology at Vilnius University. 

The acronym SWAP stands for Sustainable working-life for ageing populations, and the research project’s aim is to study the rapid changes facing people over 50 from a Nordic-Baltic perspective. Or, as one of the working groups in the project put it: Work until you are 72 – dream or nightmare?

“Perhaps because people simply don’t want to work for longer? Iceland used to be a country where people worked into old age, but attitudes are changing,” said Kolbeinn Hólmar Stefánsson from the University of Iceland.

The other four projects with equally cryptical acronyms are:

REMOTE-Flex

which will look at hybrid working, which is the preferred term these days when many jobs are not necessarily performed in an office. 

“What impact does remote and flexible working have on employees’ motivation? That is one of our main questions,” said project leader Andreas Stenling from Umeå University.

“The problem with a lot of the current research is that it is ambiguous. Hybrid work can reduce stress, improve the work-life balance and improve productivity. But it can also reduce satisfaction, productivity, information exchange and increase loneliness.”

SUNREM

looks at labour markets in remote areas (the acronym stands for Sustainable Remote Nordic Labour Markets).

The project studies places like Slite and Skellefteå in Sweden, Stord and Hammerfest in Norway, Dalvík and Húsavík in Island, and also Åland.

“We will make use of backcasting, a technique where you define a desired result at a point in the future and work backwards to find out what is needed to reach that goal,” said Gustaf Norlén. He is the project’s deputy leader, and Anna Lundgren is the project leader. Both work at Nordregio.

Gustaf Norlén, deputy project leader for SUNREM and Nordregion researcher.

The idea is to involve local decision-makers both in identifying goals for the green transition and how to reach them.

“Backcasting is not about predicting what will happen, but identifying what you wish to happen.”

The towns and cities that have been selected are relatively different, from Skellefteå with 32,000 inhabitants and rapidly expanding industry, to Norðurþing with one tenth the number of inhabitants. 

SIWH

is short for ”Sustainable and inclusive hybrid workplaces - anywhere and anytime?”, and will look at hybrid work from a new angle. The research group comprises four architects, four engineers and two sociologists. They will investigate the impact of the hybrid workplace on office workers and their organisations, on urban planning, and on the climate. 

They will study four Swedish companies – the SEB bank, gaming company TocaBoca, Gothenburg Municipality and the property company HIGAB. 

Working in a Nordic group also means that certain issues are more important to certain countries. 

“In Iceland, dampness in houses is a very big problem. Energy is so cheap that people just leave their windows open, and we don’t have ventilation systems with fans,” said Ólafur H. Wallevik from Reykjavik University. 

Icelandic researcher Ólafur H. Wallevik from Reykjavik University.

This means that the work environment for people who work from home does not live up to the standards set for ventilation. It is not a damp environment in itself that is the problem. The main issue is that it leads to mould damage which in turn can result in allergies.

The research group aims to present its findings at the European Healthy Buildings conference in Reykjavik in June 2025.

Four companies will be identified for investigation. Some of the research will also concentrate on how hybrid work fits into the Nordic model. 

“Legislation and local agreements were created for the ‘old working life’ and need adapting,” said Marianne Skaar from Sintef in Trondheim.

Marianne Skaar, researcher at Sintef, represents Norway in the SIWH research project.

Two companies – one public and one private – will be studied in Trondheim and in Bærum, a neighbouring municipality to Oslo. 

UISH

looks at sexual harassment in the workplace. The research group used a video presentation of themselves and the project, but only sent one of their researchers to the event in Vilnius. 

There are high expectations from NordForsk to UISH, however, since this group will be following up on one of the research themes which has attracted the most attention – a study of sexual harassment in the police force, led by Dag Ellingsen.

After presenting their projects, each research group was asked to put questions to another group. The most common comment was that the projects might be too ambitious. 

Anna-Karin Florén is responsible for the Fortes research council's ten-year national labour market research programme, which has contributed the most money. She was satisfied after the meeting of researchers in Vilnius.

"I am very pleased with these research projects. They respond well to some of the major societal trends such as the green transition, digitalisation, and demographic development. Forte appreciates the opportunity for collaborative learning that the research within the NordForsk projects offers."

It is important for NordForsk that the research they are funding results in something that will benefit the Nordic region.

This can be achieved either by building up a critical mass of researchers within a specific field, establishing networks, and making research more cost-effective by sharing resources. It can also be that the research can only be conducted in the Nordic countries, for example if specific registry data is available only there. 

It is also worth taking into account the ideas and insights that emerge through the meeting of researchers with different backgrounds and nationalities. In this instance, Baltic researchers can also contribute with their own perspectives on these issues.

All the researchers who participated in Vilnius, plus some representatives from NordForsk and the Nordic Council of Ministers.