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The Arctic is a vital region that helps preserve the balance of the global climate. The Arctic environment is particularly sensitive to short-lived climate pollutants, including black carbon, due to their strong warming effect. With ambitious policy action to reduce air pollutants, Arctic Council countries would obtain a positive effect on health and the environment throughout their territory, while also helping to slow down climate change by reducing emissions of black carbon. This report calls for ambitious policy action to reduce air pollution in Arctic Council countries, highlighting the environmental, health, and economic benefits from policy action.

This report assesses the potential for mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs) to contribute to the sustainable transition in Norway, and examines the challenges and opportunities that MOIPs would present. As part of a series of MOIP national case studies, the report finds that MOIPs could contribute significantly to alleviating some of the long-standing limitations of Norway’s innovation system, acknowledging the country’s strong advantages for mission-orientation and its innovative policy experimentations, such as the Pilot-E scheme and the CLIMIT programme. It proposes two options for Norway’s future MOIP approach, with corresponding recommendations. Under a ‘scaling-up’ option, Norway would develop a system to manage the implementation of cross-agency schemes in relevant challenge areas. A ‘levelling-up’ option would involve the programming of a pilot mission in the four-year investment plan of the next edition of Norway’s Long Term Plan, with support from high-level policy and political actors.

Norway is performing unevenly across its four agricultural policy objectives. While Norway enjoys a high level of food security and is meeting its aim of maintaining agricultural production across the country, both environmental performance and the efficient creation of value added along the food chain are compromised by support policies linked to production levels. Support to producers relative to gross farm receipts is the highest among OECD countries, with 59% of farmers’ revenues coming from government support. Only 3% of total support to agriculture is dedicated to research and innovation. Moreover, while Norway has strong public research institutions and well-designed tax deductions, the private sector lacks the right policy incentives to innovate. This review proposes a new policy approach, centred around innovations that would enable Norway to achieve its objectives and improve the productivity, sustainability and resilience of its agro-food sector. Specific recommendations include increasing the responsiveness of the sector to markets, giving farmers greater flexibility in making production decisions, placing greater emphasis on agri-environmental outcomes, and increasing the role of the private sector in research and innovation.

This paper analyses the role of job mobility for job reallocation and aggregate wage growth in Norway and the United States using linked employer-employee data. It provides four main findings. First, despite lower overall job mobility in Norway, the speed of worker reallocation from low-wage to high-wage firms is similar to that in the United States. Second, job reallocation tends to be counter-cyclical in Norway, but pro-cyclical in the United States, due to the weaker tendency of high-wage firms in the United States to hoard workers during economic downturns. Third, the reallocation of workers from low to high wage firms through job-to-job mobility disproportionately benefits high-skilled workers in Norway and low-skilled workers in the United States. Fourth, the slowdown in aggregate wage growth primarily reflects a weakening of on-the-job wage growth in both countries rather than a reduced role of job reallocation between low and high-wage firms (although this does also play a role in the United States).

This country policy profile on education in Norway is part of the Education Policy Outlook series. Building on the first policy profile for Norway (2013), it offers a concise analysis of where the education system stands today in terms of strengths, challenges and ongoing policy efforts, and how this compares to other systems. The profile brings together over a decade’s worth of policy analysis by the Education Policy Outlook, as well as the latest OECD data, relevant thematic and country-specific work and other international and national evidence. It also offers analysis of the Norwegian education system’s initial responses to the COVID-19 crisis and provides insight into approaches to building greater responsiveness and resilience for the future.

The work of early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals is the major driver of the quality of an ECEC system. As evidence accumulates on the strong benefits of investing in early education, countries need effective policies to attract, maintain and retain a highly skilled workforce in the sector. This report looks at the makeup of the early childhood education and care workforce across countries, assessing how initial preparation programmes compare across different systems, what types of in-service training and informal learning activities help staff to upgrade their skills, and what staff say about their working conditions, as well as identifying policies that can reduce staff stress levels and increase well-being at work. The report also looks at which leadership and managerial practices in ECEC centres contribute to improving the skills, working conditions and working methods of staff. The OECD Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) is the first international survey that focuses on the early childhood education and care workforce. It offers an opportunity to learn about the characteristics of ECEC staff and centre leaders, their practices at work, and their views on the profession and the sector. This second volume of findings, Building a High-Quality Early Childhood Education and Care Workforce, examines factors that influence the skills development of ECEC professionals, their working conditions and well-being at work, and leadership in ECEC centres.