Norma Research Programme

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The Norma Research Programme is an interdisciplinary research environment at the Faculty of Law, and a research centre affiliated with the Labour Law Research Network (LLRN).

The focus is on the legal regulation of everyday life and social integration at national, EU, and international level, and on labour markets, social welfare, ageing societies, and families.

The research environment includes a multitude of activities, such as research in labour law, social welfare law, elder law, and family law, research-based education, PhD-supervision, and external engagement. The research adopts a socio-legal and international, EU/European, and comparative approach, reflected e.g. in funding, publications, theories, methodologies, and research questions, and networks and cooperation.

The researchers collaborate in interdisciplinary settings with researchers in areas, such as economics, gerontology, human rights, industrial/employment relations, medicine, political science, social work, and sociology.

The members of the Norma Research Programme are actively involved in external engagement and collaborate with researchers in legal-scientific and interdisciplinary contexts in Swedish, European, and international settings.

Selected key partners, collaborators, and networks include:

PhD Studies

The senior members of the Norma Research Programme are experienced researchers and PhD-supervisors and are interested in supervising PhDs in the fields of labour law, social welfare law, elder law, and family law or in the cross-boundary relation between these and other areas of law or between legal science and other academic disciplines. The Norma Research Programme offers a dynamic, international, and interdisciplinary research environment related to issues of great societal importance and provides fruitful conditions for PhD-education and multifaceted future careers.

Postgraduate courses

If you are interested in the legal regulation of everyday life, and labour law, social welfare law, elder law, and family law several advanced courses within the Swedish professional law degree programme are offered. These research-based courses are taught by both academic experts and practitioners, cover Swedish, EU/European, and international legal perspectives, and prepare you for interesting future career opportunities.

You can find the courses below. Please note that the courses are not offered every semester.

Collective Labour Law

Please note that the course is held in Swedish.

This course deals with Swedish collective labour law, taking into account the influence of EU and international regulations on Swedish law.

European Labour Law and the Internal Market

This course addresses the complex relationship between the internal market of the EU and the field of European labour law and examines several aspects in which labour and employment law issues intersect with the foundations and functioning of the EU internal market.

Family Law in a Comparative and EU Legal Perspective

Please note that the course is held in Swedish.

This course provides an introduction to relevant social-science as well as legal theories and concepts, while providing both a refresher and in-depth study of Swedish legal regulation, an insight into the overall EU law regulation as well as comparative legal studies.

Generational Conflicts in Law

Please note that the course is held in Swedish.

This course covers basic issues related to the rapid ageing of the population and the – often – low fertility in the Western world, with an emphasis on Sweden and the EU. The course content spans labour law, social security law, social law, family law and EU law.

Individual Labour Law

Please note that the course is held in Swedish.

This course aims to deepen the knowledge and understanding of individual labour law and the legal regulation of the employment relationship in the Swedish and EU/European legal context.

Medical Law

Please note that the course is held in Swedish.

This course covers basic issues related to Swedish health care and other types of activities related to medicine and health. The course content spans civil law, public law, criminal law, general jurisprudence, EU law and human rights. The course can be seen as an in-depth study of public law, civil law and the social dimension.

Practical Process and Dispute Resolution in the Social Dimension: Family/Social Law

Please note that the course is held in Swedish.

This course aims to provide a further deepening of knowledge in family and social law. Particular emphasis is placed on procedural issues, dispute resolution models and procedures in the law of the social dimension, mainly civil procedure and administrative procedure.

Practical Process and Dispute Resolution in the Social Dimension: Labour Law

Please note that the course is held in Swedish.

This course aims to provide a further deepening of knowledge in labour law. Particular emphasis is placed on procedural issues, dispute resolution models and procedures in the law of the social dimension, mainly civil procedure and administrative procedure.

Master thesis/written degree project

During the last semester of the Swedish professional law degree programme, students write a master thesis/produce a written degree project within a legal area of their choice.

In this way you can choose to further your knowledge and expertise, and specialise in the areas of labour law, social welfare law, elder law, and family law – or in the cross-boundary relation between these areas of law or between legal science and other academic disciplines.

Lottie Giertz

Lottie Giertz is a senior lecturer in social work at Linnaeus University, Department of Social Work. She has been active in the Norma Elder Law Research Environment since 2012 and the Law and Vulnerabilities Programme since 2008 and has previously been a researcher in the interdisciplinary research group REIS – Research on Elderly in Social Sciences at Linnaeus University. Her research relates to support and efforts for people with cognitive impairments that affect their ability to self-determination and decision-making.

Within the framework of the Norma Elder Law Research Environment, Lottie Giertz, together with Titti Mattsson and Angelika Thelin, carried out a multidisciplinary research project on legislation and practices regarding consent of people with dementia, financed by the Kamprad Family Foundation.

Read more about Lottie Giertz at her staff page at the Linnaeus University website

Gerard Quinn

Gerard Quinn is an Emeritus Professor at the Centre for Disability Law & Policy, National University of Ireland, Galway, an Honorary Doctor at the Faculty of Law at Lund University, and a former Raoul Wallenberg Visiting Chair at the Faculty of Law/the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Lund.

For many years, Quinn has been an internationally leading academic in the field of human rights with a particular focus on persons with disabilities. In October 2020, he was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Gerard Quinn has participated in seminar activities and research within the Norma Elder Law Research Environment and contributed to the creation of a European network in older persons’ rights in 2019, the European Law and Ageing Network (ELAN).

Read more about professor Quinn at his staff page at the National University of Ireland

Angelika Thelin

Angelika Thelin is a senior lecturer in social work at the Department of Social Work, Linnaeus University. Between 2017–2020 she was active as researcher in the COST ACTION Reducing Old-Age Social Exclusion: Collaborations in Research and Policy. She is also part of the National network for elderly research in social sciences. Her research interest, among other things, concerns the implementation of social law and unattended social needs among elderly.

Within the framework of the Norma Elder Law Research Environment, Lottie Giertz, together with Titti Mattsson and Angelika Thelin, carried out a multidisciplinary research project on legislation and practices regarding consent of people with dementia, financed by the Kamprad Family Foundation.

Read more about Angelika Thelin at her staff page at the Linnaeus University website

The Norma Elder Law Research Environment was initiated in 2012 as an integrated area of research, within the Norma Research Programme, in which different aspects of the legal conditions of ageing could be studied long-term and merged into a deeper body of knowledge with a focus on national and EU law, but also including comparative elements. Elder law is an interdisciplinary research area of great societal significance. Three initial focus-areas of research were ‘Legal Empowerment of Elderly Workers’, ‘Legal Empowerment of Elderly Citizens’, and ‘Legal Empowerment of Elderly Migrants’. In this initial phase and as an innovative strategic initiative the research environment was generously funded by the Ragnar Söderberg Foundation and the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.

Research carried out in the area of elder law is now fully integrated into the overall Norma Research Programme. Throughout the years various research projects have been developed and the programme has also hosted numerous visiting scholars.

Selected key publications for the establishment and further development of the elder law research environment include:

A. Numhauser-Henning (ed.), Introduction to the Norma Elder Law Research Environment. Different Approaches to Elder Law (Faculty of Law, Lund University 2013). Open access.
A. Numhauser-Henning and M. Rönnmar (eds), Age Discrimination and Labour Law. Comparative and Conceptual Perspectives in the EU and Beyond (Wolters Kluwer, Alphen aan den Rijn 2015).
A. Numhauser-Henning (ed.), Elder Law. Evolving European Perspectives (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2017).
T. Mattsson and A. Numhauser-Henning (ed.), Äldrerätt. Ett nytt rättsområde (Wolter Kluwer, Stockholm 2017).
L. Giertz, T. Mattsson, and A. Thelin, Nedsatt beslutsförmåga – rätt, riktlinjer och praktik (Studentlitteratur, Lund 2021).

The Norma Research Programme started in 1996 with generous funding from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. The purpose of the programme was to create a research environment where basic normative patterns and their development and relationship to ongoing changes in society within the area of the Social Dimension in Europe could be studied in depth and from a long-term perspective. Three initial projects related to ‘European Legal Development within the Social Dimension’, ‘Flexibility in Employment’, and ‘Discrimination in Employment’.

Professor emerita Ann Numhauser-Henning was, together with the late Professor Anna Christensen, initiator of the Norma Research Programme, and served as its first coordinator. Ann Numhauser-Henning was also the initiator and first coordinator of the Norma Elder Law Research Environment. The multi-disciplinary approach of the Norma Research Programme, combining labour law, social welfare law, family law, comparative law, EU law, and legal theory, was unique in the Swedish and Nordic setting.

Throughout the years, the Norma Research Programme has organised frequent international conferences and workshops and hosted numerous visiting scholars. The Norma Research Programme has produced a rich variety of research output, such as an initial working paper series, a Norma Series at Juristförlaget i Lund, licentiate and doctoral theses in law, and monographs, edited volumes, and articles with highly ranked national and international publishing houses and peer review journals.

Selected key publications for the establishment and further development of the Norma Research Programme include:

A. Christensen, ‘Skydd för etablerad position – ett normativt grundmönster’, Tidsskrift for Rettsvitenskap, No 4, 1996, pp. 519–574.
A. Christensen, ‘Normative Patterns and the Normative Field: A Post-Liberal View on Law’ in T. Wilhelmsson and S. Hurri (eds), From Dissonance to Sense: Welfare State Expectations, Privatisation and Private Law (Ashgate 1999).
A. Numhauser-Henning (ed.), Perspektiv på likabehandling och diskriminering(Juristförlaget i Lund, Lund 2000).
A. Numhauser-Henning (ed.), Normativa perspektiv. Festskrift till Anna Christensen(Juristförlaget i Lund, Lund 2000).
A. Numhauser-Henning (ed.), Legal Perspectives on Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 2001).
T. Mattsson, Rätten till familj inom barn- och ungdomsvården (Liber, Stockholm 2010).
A. Numhauser-Henning and M. Rönnmar (ed.), Fifteen Years with the Norma Research Programme. Anniversary volume (Faculty of Law, Lund University, 2010). Open access.
A. Numhauser-Henning and M. Rönnmar (eds), Normative Patterns and Legal Developments in the Social Dimension of the EU (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2013).
M. Rönnmar and J. Julén Votinius (eds), Festskrift till Ann Numhauser-Henning(Juristförlaget i Lund, Lund 2017).

Professor Anna Christensen developed the theory of law as normative patterns in a normative field. The theory is based on the thesis that different basic normative patterns can be distinguished in the multitude of legal norms. As social life is quite complex, these normative patterns do not make up the ‘hierarchical legal system’ we frequently imagine. Instead, these patterns are being set into play in a normative field as determined by the different basic patterns, which also act as normative poles.

Another component of the theoretical framework is the functional relationship between the legal system and the structure of society and conditions of economic production elaborated in the work of Professor Ann Numhauser-Henning. The basic normative patterns are held to reflect normative practices functional to society and human relationships.

They thus reflect – and codify – social normative conceptions and practices aimed at making long-lasting human relationships and sustainable societies possible, and they are closely related to societal conditions.