The Nordic welfare states are facing new challenges in an increasingly globalised world. Fiercer competition has underlined the need for the Nordics to enhance competitiveness - and to support and nurse growth in industry and businesses. This report presents the key findings and policy recommendations of the project "Nordic Growth Sectors." Having identified growth companies in the Nordics, the project analyses growth drivers, the match between supply and demand of labour, the work environment in the companies, and growth and other companies' perceptions of existing framework conditions and improvement needs. Based on the analyses and on a Nordic Policy Forum held in Copenhagen with participation of policymakers from the central administrations, labour market organisations, universities and growth companies, a set of policy recommendations are developed, the most important of which are to Introduce: (i) More flexible retirement schemes; (ii) Diminish international recruitment red tape; (iii) Prepare graduates better for employment; (iv) Create national work environment "barometers"; (v) Introduce more flexible child care facilities; (vi) Carry out cost-benefit analysis of complex regulation

The creative and cultural industries (CCIs) have recently been debated widely, and access to finance has been at the forefront. This KreaNord report, created in 2012, maps the Nordic CCIs’ financial environment, and shows that the environment is facilitating the same access to corporate finance for CCIs as for other sectors. However, the supply of project finance requested by CCIs, is rare/non-existing, and mostly provided as debt. This report concludes the findings as market failure in supply of debt instruments for CCIs, and recommends a development process be initiated. Republished in 2015 following the end of KreaNord, the Nordic Council of Ministers’ initiative on cultural and creative industries (2008–2015).

Job creation and green growth are top political priorities in all Nordic countries. New jobs will be created in existing companies and organizations, but a significant number of new jobs will have to be created in new companies based on new technologies and new business models. At the same time, the Nordic countries have all set ambitious targets for reductions in carbon emissions, and pledged to transform to a low carbon economy. The green transition is a challenging task, but does also represent major business opportunities. New companies are developed by innovative entrepreneurs throughout the Nordics. They need access to relevant, competent risk capital to grow, to create value and new jobs.

The Nordic future of workHow will work and working life in the Nordic countries change in the future? This is the question to be addressed in the project The Future of Work: Opportunities and Challenges for the Nordic Models. This initial report describes the main drivers and trends expected to shape the future of work. It also reviews the main distinctions of the Nordic model and recent developments in Nordic working lives, pointing towards the kind of challenges the future of work may pose to the Nordic models. Too often, debates about the future narrowly focus on changes in technology. This report draws attention to the broader drivers and political-institutional frameworks influencing working life developments, aiming to spur debate about how the interaction of changes in demography, climate, globalization and digital technologies may influence Nordic working lives in the coming decades.

This book rejects the idea that natural resource industries are doomed to slow growth. Rather, it examines the case of Norway to demonstrate that such industries can prove highly innovative and dynamic. Here, the case is compellingly made that a key empirical problem with the popular ‘resource curse’ argument is that some of the richest countries in the world – namely Norway, Sweden, Canada and Australia – have all developed fast-growing economies based on natural resources. Analysis of innovation and knowledge development in natural resource industries reveal important new insights about the role of learning and innovation. These insights are key to understanding variances in growth levels between natural resource-based economies. Ranestad illustrates how Norway’s high economic performance is built on knowledge-based natural resource industries. While Norwegian industries may have originated because of foreign technology and expertise, they thrived due to further developments carried out by organisations within Norway. Ranestad looks at how these developments were possible due to the country’s high level of human capital, capacity for knowledge absorption and ability to adapt to new global technological and economic circumstances.