Swedish and European labour and employment law in the modern labour market

Labour and employemnt law is a topical issue.

Changes in the labour market change the legal conditions and new and revised legislation are planned both in Sweden and at EU level.There are around 30 labour law researchers in Sweden, most of them lawyers but there are also researchers in sociology of law and personel management. For more than 20-years there have been a network for them led by Birgitta Nyström.

In 2007 when the Work Life Institute was closed three researchers (from Lund, Umeå and Stockholm) contacted FAS (now Forte) for funding of a more permanent network that could meet regularly.

The network have been funded by Forte until 2018 (with minor interruptions).Labour law researchers work at the universities in Umeå, Uppsala, Stockholm, Göteborg, Örebro, Växjö, Lund and Malmö, at departments of law, social sciencis, economics etc.

The gender distribution is almost equal and the network includes all ages.We meet 1-2 times per year at two-day seminars where we discuss projects and papers, and also topical questions within our research area.

Sometimes we have had visitors from other Nordic countries or other disciplinces.During the Corona-pandemic two scholars in the network; Erik Sjödin (Stockholm) and Niklas Selberg (Lund), have kept the group together by arranging webbinars.The network meetings move between the places in Sweden where there are active labour law researchers, so the responsibilites for the arrangements are distributed.Beside the seminar activities at the network meetings, we have within the network produced three anthologies, puplished by well-known publishers, that aim to spread knowledge about topical labour law issues for Swedish and English-speaking readers.With such a small group of researchers, spread on different places, it is very important that the network meetings can continue and be funded.