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Labour Exploitation Research Network (LERN)

Welcome to LERN – an international, research-led network hosted by Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research in Oslo. LERN is a network for researchers and professionals dedicated to advancing knowledge and addressing labour exploitation and work-related crime (WRC).

Established in 2016, LERN brings together scholars working on labour exploitation and work-related crime (WRC), including forced labour, human trafficking for labour exploitation, severe underpayment and wage theft, and the regulatory, administrative and criminal justice responses that shape workers’ access to rights and remedies.

LERN grew out of Nordic collaboration between researchers in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Comparative exchange has been central from the outset. Building on this Nordic foundation, the network has expanded to include collaborators across a wider set of jurisdictions and research communities, supporting systematic international dialogue and comparison.

LERN is transdisciplinary in both approach and method. Our work spans legal studies and socio-legal research, criminology, labour studies and regulatory governance, as well as sociology, social anthropology, minority studies, gender studies, and migration and refugee studies. A shared concern across these fields is how exploitation is defined, evidenced and addressed in practice, and how institutional arrangements shape protection, accountability and access to justice.

Our Purpose

LERN aims to:

  1. Strengthen research exchange and comparative dialogue across disciplines and countries, including conceptual and methodological development in the study of labour exploitation and WRC.
  2. Support collaborative research processes, including the development of joint research applications, comparative research designs, and shared publication initiatives.
  3. Create arenas where research communities can engage with practitioners and relevant institutions when useful, while keeping the network clearly research-led and academically grounded.

How the network is organised

LERN is organised as a research network with a small coordinating core and a broader circle of affiliated scholars and collaborators.

Participation is activity-based and develops through research exchange, seminars and roundtables, sharing of drafts and references, and collaboration on comparative research designs and joint research applications.

The network is intentionally flexible, recognising that members’ capacity varies over time. For this reason, LERN does not operate with open membership; new affiliations typically emerge through ongoing collaboration, shared research interests, and participation in specific activities.

Core Members

LERN’s strength comes from its core group of dedicated researchers.

Founding members and steering group:

  1. Synnøve Økland Jahnsen – Fafo
  2. Isabel Schoultz – Lund University
  3. Natalia Ollus – HEUNI
  4. Marlene Spanger – Aalborg University

Affiliated Members

Key Research Themes

Work in the network typically engages with topics such as:

  • Underpayment and wage theft, and pathways to remedy across legal and institutional tracks
  • Forced labour and human trafficking for labour exploitation in Nordic and comparative perspectives
  • Migrant worker rights, precarious legal status, and barriers to protection and justice
  • Regulation and enforcement across criminal law, administrative law, labour law, and collective/industrial relations arenas
  • Institutional case processing, evidentiary thresholds, and inter-agency cooperation
  • Labour market vulnerabilities, exclusion, discrimination and inequality (including gendered and minoritised experiences)
  • Procurement, supply chains and employer practices, including cross-border dynamics
  • Comparative policy development and the evolution of “work-related crime” as a governance field

Approaches and methods

LERN supports methodological breadth. Approaches represented in the network range from doctrinal legal analysis and socio-legal scholarship to qualitative interviews, ethnography, document and policy analysis, case mapping, and comparative research designs. The network values careful conceptual work as well as empirically grounded analysis of law in action and institutional practice.

Activities and collaboration

LERN develops activities as opportunities arise. This may include short online roundtables, research seminars, workshops connected to ongoing projects, and working discussions aimed at comparative exchange and research development. Where relevant, the network also facilitates collaboration around joint funding applications and publication processes, for example by circulating short drafts for feedback or organising focused discussions around working papers.

Highlighted projects

LERN is associated with a set of related research projects that contribute to knowledge development on labour exploitation and worker protection, including:

  • Provision and Labour Rights to Migrant Workers (PROMI)
  • INTEGRATE
  • Law in Action: Policy and Legal Responses to the Exploitation of Migrant Workers in the Nordic Countries
  • Safety for All
  • Sector-Specific Risks to Migrant Workers
  • Hankinta Suomi
  • FLOW
  • Responses to Labour Exploitation in Sweden
  • Kartlegging av bosatte innvandrere med D-nummer

Contact

For questions about LERN, upcoming activities, or collaboration ideas, please contact the network coordinator: Synnøve Økland Jahnsen (Fafo).

Forskere