For PhD students researching labour law, finding colleagues who work with the exact same questions can be hard.
“When you are a PhD student at one of the faculties in the Nordic countries, you are often part of a research group with a wider focus than the subject of your own research.
Read this article in Norwegian on Arbeidsliv i Norden
“This means you are often a bit isolated when it comes to your particular area of labour law. It’s not always easy to talk about your research to other PhD students,” says Erik Sjödin, senior lecturer at the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University.
Yet talking to “likeminded people” was what participants at the Nordic research course in labour law were able to do when it was held in late August.
16 PhD students from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden gathered in Stockholm. They were at different stages of their doctoral studies. Some were in their first year while others were nearing the end.
Someone who has just began their doctoral studies can benefit from meeting someone who has come further in their work. Those who are approaching the final stages might also gain new perspectives on issues they have been working on for a long time.
Erik Sjödin is one of the initiators of the course. Photo: privat
Sjödin is a civil law lecturer and researcher, specialising in labour law. He organised the course together with professor Niklas Selberg at Linneæus University in Sweden.
“The idea is to gather the Nordic PhD students who are studying labour law. There is a need to meet and discuss,” says Sjödin.
The aim is to give labour law researchers in the Nordics an arena where they can meet early on in their research career.
Even though the Nordic countries share many similarities, they also have different labour law traditions, institutions and regulatory frameworks.
The conditions were therefore well suited to exchange experiences of labour law research in the different Nordic countries and learning from each other’s traditions, according to the course organisers.
A course with traditions
This year’s course is not the first of its kind.
The tradition goes back to 1987, when the first Nordic labour law research course was held in Finland. Niklas Bruun at the University of Helsinki and the Swedish professor Tore Sideman were behind the project.
Since then, the course has been held several times in different Nordic countries by different organisers. There has not, however, been a fixed interval between the courses.
“Over the years, the course has been a regular but not routinely held feature of doctoral training in labour law across the Nordic region,” says Sjödin.
Funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers
Sjödin attended the course himself in 2010, when it was organised in Falsterbo in Sweden.
“Besides meeting legendary professors of labour law, like Bob Hepple from the University of Cambridge, it was equally important for me to meet people who are now leaders in their field in the Nordic region,” he says.
Sjödin has stayed in touch with several of those he met at the course back then. He has also carried out research projects with some of them.
One example:
Sjödin, Jari Murto at the University of Helsinki and Melanie Regine Hack at the University of Bergen have been collaborating on issues linked to working hours in the Nordics. They recently published research together.
Murto, Hack and Sjödin met during the 2010 labour law course.
“The course is a good opportunity to build networks among labour law researchers across the Nordic countries. There aren’t that many of us. We believe courses like this are important for fostering a Nordic research community in labour law,” says Sjödin.
Help for the future
The course is divided into two parts: One is led by invited, internationally renowned labour law researchers. The other focuses more closely on the doctoral students’ own writing and research processes.
During the course, participants present their own research projects and have the opportunity to discuss issues, theories and methods with others working in the same field.
The topics for research say something about which issues are current in the field of labour law.
They include working hours, employers’ sense of loyalty, equal pay, algorithms and artificial intelligence, the posting of workers, pensions, human rights and platform work.
“A useful course”
Laura Immonen is a PhD student at the University of Turku.
She started her PhD in January but has been linked to a research group at the faculty of law since 2024.
She researches platform work in Finland. She chose the theme partly because of the research group she is part of, which studies the use of algorithms in working life.
Her supervisor told her about the research course.
“The course offered a good opportunity to gain new academic knowledge and to meet other PhD students from the Nordics who research labour law,” Immonen says.
She felt the seminars were academically interesting and says it gave her new perspectives of her own work.
The social aspect was important too.
“It was nice to get to know other PhD students and to hear about their research. It was interesting and useful to discuss problems with others in the same situation as me. I felt it was great to have this opportunity at this stage i my own studies.”
She had not previously participated in a seminar or course in a Nordic setting.
“I hope to stay in touch with those I met at the course and that this can become a network that I can use if I feel the need to do that,” Immonen says.
For those with a special interest in labour law
Christoffer Dalsbø Selfors at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø is one of two Norwegian PhD students who participated in the course.
He has a background as a lawyer and has worked with cross-border labour law and issues linked to the Posted Workers Directive.
Nearly one year ago, Selfors got back into “the classroom”. Now, he is researching different aspects of the revised Posted Workers Directive and its impact on Norwegian legislation.
The doctoral fellowship runs for four years, and he plans to submit his thesis in the autumn of 2029.
For Selfors, it was precisely the course’s specialisation in labour law that made it valuable.
He says that regular doctoral training at universities typically cover more general questions relating to legal research methodology.
““For those of us researching labour law, a course specifically focused on the subject is highly relevant and valuable. Meeting other doctoral candidates who are also writing about labour law adds an extra dimension to the academic experience.”
He highlights the value of hearing about similarities and differences between the Nordic countries, but also about how other researchers approach problems.
Selfors believes in the importance of building informal networks through courses like this.
“If, for example, I want to write about how a similar issue is regulated in another country, it may be easier to contact someone I met on the course who is based in another Nordic country.”
Hoping for more courses
The organisers of this year’s course believe that, in the long term, everyone doing a PhD in labour law in the Nordic countries should have the opportunity to attend a course like this during their doctoral training.
A PhD normally takes four years, which means the course does not need to be held every year to become a natural part of doctoral training. If it is organised at regular intervals, new cohorts will have the opportunity to attend during their PhD.
The organisers hope that the research course can be developed further. But this requires someone to be willing, able and have the time to organise it.
“We really believe in this idea. It’s different from meeting at a conference,” says Sjödin.
