How do different forms of employment affect your health, your family and your capacity to work? How can we make it easier for people to work throughout their lives? And what are the best ways of dealing with conflicts that arise in the workplace? Now seven programmes, 19 projects and four networks will be sharing SEK 200 million to conduct research into the challenges of working life.

The way our working lives are structured is vital to the development of society. It affects individuals and society as a whole. We need more information to make it easier to tackle the challenges in this area.

The call for proposals “Challenges in working Life 2019” sought research that contributes to increasing the inclusion of under-represented groups in the labour market, improving the prerequisites and conditions for organising and undertaking work, adapting working life to demographic changes and reducing the occurrence of intimidation, violence and harassment in the workplace.

The call for proposals is part of the national programme for research on working life, for which Forte is responsible. The call received 140 applications. Of these, seven programmes, 19 projects and four networks were granted funding amounting to a total of SEK 200 million, divided between the three types of grant.

Thomas Jacobsson

“The projects, programmes and networks granted funding are a good match for the needs we have identified. We are now boosting these areas of research, while simultaneously helping to improve the circumstances in which work is carried out in the future,” says Thomas Jacobsson, Programme Manager at Forte.

Some of the research now receiving funding involves looking at how different forms of employment affect people’s lives inside and outside work, and how we can create working patterns that are more sustainable and enable people to work for longer.

“This focus not only sees us boosting our research into working life in the long term, but also helps to develop and improve society for the future. More research and new knowledge are therefore vital,” says Ethel Forsberg, Director General, Forte.

For a list of the granted projects, including project titles, project leaders and granted funds, see the page Grant decisions.

The national programme on working life research

In 2017 the Government set up seven ten-year national research programmes to produce new knowledge that would better enable Sweden to meet challenges in society. Forte is responsible for two of these ten-year research programmes. One of them is the national programme on working life research.

Read more about the national programme on working life research »