NAERINGSLIVETS HOVEDORGANISASJON

Their core work

NHO (Næringslivets Hovedorganisasjon) is Norway's largest employers' organisation, representing over 25,000 member businesses across all sectors of the Norwegian economy. In EU research projects, they contribute as the institutional voice of Norwegian industry — bringing employer perspectives, business community networks, and labour market intelligence to European consortia. Their H2020 participation is concentrated in Coordination and Support Actions focused on innovation governance and researcher skills development, where their value lies in validating research relevance against real business needs. They function as a bridge between the European research community and the Norwegian private sector, providing credibility, reach, and policy influence rather than technical research capacity.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

NHO's H2020 engagement began with a macro-level focus on regional innovation governance — smart specialisation, development policy, and designing responsible innovation ecosystems across European regions. By their second project, the focus had shifted considerably inward toward the individual researcher level: doctoral training, career tracking, transferable skills, and how PhDs can better enter the labour market. Both threads share a common concern — closing the gap between research and practical economic use — but the angle moved from systemic policy design to concrete workforce pipeline development.

NHO appears to be moving toward projects that strengthen the human pipeline from academia to industry, which aligns with the long-term interest of employers in recruiting research-trained talent and in shaping doctoral education to produce more industry-ready graduates.

How they like to work

NHO participates exclusively as a consortium partner — they have not led a single H2020 project — which is consistent with their role as an advocacy and representative body rather than a research executor. Despite only two projects, they worked with 29 distinct partners across 18 countries, indicating participation in large, pan-European CSA consortia where national employer organisations are recruited for their stakeholder reach. Working with them means gaining access to their member business network and employer credibility, not technical research output.

NHO has connected with 29 unique partners across 18 countries through just two projects, reflecting the broad multi-stakeholder consortia typical of CSA actions in education and innovation policy. Their network spans European employers, universities, and policy bodies — though no individual partner relationships are repeated across projects given the small sample.

What sets them apart

NHO is the institutional voice of Norwegian business — when a European consortium needs a credible, nationally representative employer perspective from Norway, NHO is the natural choice. Unlike universities or research institutes, they can mobilise employer engagement, validate research relevance with industry practitioners, and connect outputs to actual hiring and training decisions across tens of thousands of Norwegian companies. For any project touching researcher careers, skills policy, or regional business ecosystems in a Nordic context, NHO provides access that no academic institution can replicate.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SeeRRI
  The largest and first H2020 engagement (EUR 79,000), tackling responsible research and innovation at the ecosystem level — NHO's entry point into European R&I governance and the project most reflective of their policy influence role.
• DocEnhance
  Focused on reforming PhD programmes to improve researcher employability and industry readiness — a direct expression of NHO's employer mission and the most concrete instance of their industry-academia bridge function.