Chapter 3: Nordic added value: An historical outline

Frederik Forrai Ørskov and Tuire Liimatainen

The English-language concept Nordic added value did not enter the vocabulary of Nordic co-operation until the early 2010s.

This chapter provides an amended version of Tuire Liimatainen’s account of the conceptualisation of the need for and legitimacy of joint Nordic efforts in the context of Nordic research co-operation in the 2023 report Nordic Added Value in Nordic Research Co-operation. Liimatainen, “Nordic Added Value in Nordic Research Co-Operation,” 11–17, 20.

Yet its emergence and use form part of a longer history of seeking, articulating, and operationalising the relevance of Nordic co-operation in changing social, political, domestic, and international contexts. This history is as long as the history of Nordic co-operation, preceding the creation of the Nordic Council in 1952 by more than a century.

See, e.g., Rasmus Glenthøj, “Skandinavismen - En Politisk Utopi Fra 1800-Tallet?: Et Komparativt Studie,” in Utopi Og Realiteter: Festskrift Til Erik Kulavig (Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2018), 227–44; Ruth Hemstad, Fra Indian Summer til nordisk vinter: skandinavisk samarbeid, skandinavisme og unionsøpplosningen (Oslo: Akademisk Publisering, 2008); Peter Stadius and Ruth Hemstad, eds., Nordic Experiences in Pan-Nationalisms: A Reappraisal and Comparison, 1840–1940, 1st ed. (London: Routledge, 2023); Jan Hecker-Stampehl, “Keeping Up the Morale: Constructions of ‘Nordic Democracy’ during World War II,” in Rhetorics of Nordic Democracy, eds. Johan Strang and Jussi Kurunmäki (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society / SKS, 2010), 141–64.

It is a history that is deeply intertwined with an equally long-running discussion of what constitutes “the Nordic region” geographically, culturally, and politically.

Strang, Marjanen, and Hilson, “A Rhetorical Perspective on Nordicness: From Creating Unity to Exporting Models”; Jalava and Stråth, “Scandinavia/Norden”; Øystein Sørensen and Bo Stråth, eds., The Cultural Construction of Norden (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1997).

While always subject to debate, the legitimacy of Nordic co-operation was not seriously challenged through the creation of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 1971 and until what has been characterised as “the third track change” of Nordic co-operation in the early-to-mid 1990s.

Bengt Sundelius and Claes Wiklund, “Nordisk förnyelse i etapper,” in Norden i sicksack. Tre spårbyten inom nordiskt samarbete (Santérus Förlag, 2000), 19; Kharkina, “From Kinship to Global Brand,” 35.

The idea that common values, democratic traditions, societal institutions, and strong linguistic ties have provided Nordic co-operation with a natural foundation and legitimacy is built on a long historical tradition. By the 1980s, this ideational foundation was still prevalent if often unspoken.

Gosta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 1990); Pirjo Markkola, “The Lutheran Nordic Welfare States,” in Beyond Welfare State Models. Transnational Historical Perspectives on Social Policy., eds. Pauli Kettunen and Klaus Petersen (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2011), 102–18; Johan Strang, “The Rhetoric of Nordic Cooperation: From the Other Europe to the Better Europe?,” in Contesting Nordicness: From Scandinavianism to the Nordic Brand, eds. Johan Strang, Jani Marjanen, and Mary Hilson (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2021), 103–31.

However, the end of the Cold War and the EU membership debates that eventually led to Sweden’s and Finland’s joining in 1995 caused a major rethink of the purpose of and organisation of Nordic co-operation.

Johan Strang, “Introduction: The Nordic Model of Transnational Cooperation?,” in Nordic Cooperation (Routledge, 2015), 1–26; Øyvind Tønnesson, “Efter 1994. Tvil Om Nytten,” in 50 År: Nordisk Råd 1952-2002. Til Nordiske Nytte?, ed. Knud Enggaard (Copenhagen, 2002), 133–50; Sundelius and Wiklund, “Nordisk förnyelse i etapper.”

With a view to understanding the emergence of Nordic added value as the quintessential concept for articulating the relevance of Nordic co-operation and the meanings currently attached to it, this chapter therefore outlines how this relevance has been conceptualised from the early 1990s onwards. How this conceptualisation has played out at and, at times, been facilitated by the Secretariat to the Nordic Council of Ministers – a central actor in the process – is further elaborated on in Chapter 4.

Nordisk nytta: the “Need to have” of Nordic co-operation

In the 1990s, Nordic co-operation came up for revision. Denmark had been a member of the European Economic Community since 1973, but with Finland and Sweden’s joint accession to what was now the European Union in 1995, the Nordic region faced a new situation, even if Norway and Iceland did not join the EU but remained members of the European Economic Area (EEA). Along with Finland and Sweden joining the EU, the very establishment of the EU with the 1993 Maastricht Treaty and the intensification of European integration that this represented placed Nordic co-operation in a new political context. At the same time, the geopolitical changes and possible new arenas for co-operation that emerged with the fall of the Soviet Union, the independence of the Baltic countries, and the hopes invested in a democratic Russia caused a shift in the priorities of national governments and at the Nordic level.

Johan Strang and Norbert Götz, eds., Nordiskt samarbete i kalla krigets kölvatten: Vittnesseminarium med Uffe Elleman-Jensen, Mats Hellström och Pär Stenbäck (Södertörns högskola, 2016); Nils Andrén, “Säkerhetspolitikens återkomst,” in Norden i sicksack: Tre spårbyten inom nordiskt samarbete, eds. Bengt Sundelius and Claes Wiklund (Stockholm: Santérus Förlag, 2000), 293–301; Kazimierz Musiał, “Reconceptualizing Nordic Identities after 1989,” in Bordering the Baltic: Scandinavian Boundary-Drawing Processes, 1900-2000, ed. Madeleine Hurd (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2011), 105–25; Kazimierz Musiał, “Reconstructing Nordic Significance in Europe on the Threshold of the 21st Century,” Scandinavian Journal of History 34, no. 3 (2009): 286–306.

In light of these developments, former narratives situating Nordic co-operation as representing an “other” Europe between East and West no longer held much appeal.

Strang, “The Rhetoric of Nordic Cooperation,” 104.

This gave rise to heated debate on the significance and future of Nordic co-operation vis-á-vis the EU and the democratising post-Warszawa block states, the Baltic countries being the most prominent. The debate also came to revolve around the effect of the activities of the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers,

Peter Duelund and Gitte Pedersen, “The Nordic Cultural Cooperation,” in The Nordic Cultural Model. Copenhagen: Nordic Cultural Institute, 2003, 255–56.

not least because the existing framework for Nordic co-operation was regarded as incapable of renewal and flexibility in a challenging international context.

Gry Larsen, “Reformering av Nordisk Råd,” in Norden i sicksack: Tre spårbyten inom nordiskt samarbete, eds. Bengt Sundelius and Claes Wiklund (Stockholm: Santérus Förlag, 2000), 202.

The idea of nordisk nytta (“Nordic benefit/advantage/usefulness”) was first introduced as a guiding principle for Nordic co-operation in this context. It was first offered as a central operational concept in the report Nordiskt samarbete i en ny tid [Nordic Co-operation in a New Era],

Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Council, “Nordiskt samarbete i en ny tid: det nordiska samarbetet i ljuset av folkomröstningarna om EU-medlemskap för Finland, Norge och Sverige: förslag till mål, innehåll och former för nordiskt samarbete i en föränderlig tid” (Nordic Council, Nordic Council of Ministers, 1995).

which was tabled for discussion at the 46th Session of the Nordic Council on 28 February 1995 and signed off by a high-profile joint working group of the Nordic Council and Nordic Council of Ministers. The report had been commissioned at a joint meeting of the Nordic prime ministers and the Nordic Council’s Presidium in November 1994, but largely followed a direction already outlined by the Nordic prime ministers in the 1992 Bornholm declaration. Still, the working group’s mandate was explicitly linked to the EU membership referenda taking place in October and November 1994 in Finland, Norway, and Sweden.

Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Council; Tønnesson, “Tvil Om Nytten,” 2002, 133–34.

The report was clearly positioned as a response to a perceived need to renew, modernise, and rationalise Nordic co-operation.

Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Council, “Nordiskt samarbete i en ny tid,” 1995.

The 1995 report defined nordisk nytta as the outcome of activities that:

could otherwise be undertaken at the national level, but where concretely positive effects are generated through common Nordic solutions;
manifest and develop a sense of Nordic community; and
increase Nordic competence and competitiveness.
Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Council.

By the definition given in the 1995 reform report, the principle of nordisk nytta was defined as the positive accumulative effect of Nordic co-operation.

Duelund and Pedersen, “The Nordic Cultural Cooperation,” 256–58.

The success of any activity executed at an official Nordic level would be assessed by how it fulfilled the three predetermined goals of Nordic solutions, Nordic community, and Nordic competence. The three predetermined effects of joint Nordic effort reflected both socio-cultural values (sense of Nordic community, competence) and economic values (competence, competitiveness).

Lennartsson and Nolin, “Nordiska kulturfonden,” 20.

In this regard, it is also worth noting that the report described the Nordic region as “a genuine value community,” suggesting that shared values were the foundation of any further discussion about added value.

Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Council, “Nordiskt samarbete i en ny tid,” 1995.

Still, the report and the introduction of nordisk nytta can be understood in the context of wider political debates about Nordic co-operation, which came to focus on efficiency and outcomes, as well as an incentive to prioritise the limited resources available for Nordic co-operation.

Tønnesson, “Tvil Om Nytten,” 2002, 137.

This became a particularly pressing issue when the Swedish government decided to cut its funding for Nordic co-operation significantly in 1995 in a move that was perceived by many to reflect that European integration had led to a deprioritisation of the Nordic level, even if the then Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson denied that this was the case.

Larserik Häggman, “Sverige vill skära i nordiska budgetten,” Nordisk Kontakt, 1995.

While the budget cuts were controversial, the discussion around them revealed a relatively broad consensus that “Nordic money must be used purposefully and in such a way that they cause the greatest benefit [nytta],” in the words of the then Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Häggman.

Indeed, nordisk nytta was first applied as an instrument to implement the budgetary cuts of the mid-1990s. Based on a recommendation in the report Nordiskt samarbete i en ny tid, a joint Nordic working group was commissioned to evaluate the more than 40 individual institutions operating under the umbrella of Nordic co-operation. This evaluation was laid out in October 1995 in a report titled Nordisk nytte, which ranked the nordisk nytta of each institution on a low-medium-high scale.

Den Fællesnordiske Arbejdsgruppe, “Nordisk nytte” (Nordic Council, Nordic Council of Ministers, 1995).

In that process, the authors of Nordisk nytte noted, a precise application of the principle for nordisk nytta as outlined in the earlier report, could have the effect that the reports’ evaluations might at times be at odds with “more common evaluations of Nordic co-operation and other value perceptions of utility [værdiopfattelser af nytte].”

Den Fællesnordiske Arbejdsgruppe, 5–6.

The report thus narrowed down the prevalent understandings of what was seen as beneficial in Nordic co-operation. It did so according to a hierarchically structured three-dimensional operationalisation of the definition of nordisk nytta provided in the Nordiskt samarbete i en ny tid report, evaluating each activity according to the following order:

Its geographical area of impact or interest/whether an activity can be regarded as Nordic.
The degree of cost effectiveness and use of competencies involved in the joint efforts/whether the joint efforts lead to measurable effects through cost effectiveness or outcomes.
The quality of the results evaluated in terms of visibility of demand, efficiency, and impact/to which degree an activity facilitates the development of Nordic community, competence, and competitiveness.
Den Fællesnordiske Arbejdsgruppe, 6.

The joint working group’s application of the nordisk nytta concept led to the closure of 13 Nordic institutions, which later came under scrutiny due to its reliance on economistic thinking. Criticism was raised by the Nordic culture ministers, for example, for the fact that the report “unequivocally” favoured quantitative evaluation methods over qualitative ones. Moreover, it was noted that the constitution of the working group secured an over-representation of the finance ministries, further underpinning its economic outlook.

Christian Opitz and Tobias Etzold, “Seeking Renewed Relevance: Institutions of Nordic Cooperation in the Reform Process,” SWP Comment (Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2018); Tønnesson, “Tvil Om Nytten,” 2002; Duelund and Pedersen, “The Nordic Cultural Cooperation,” 258.

Also, parliamentarians in the Nordic Council criticised the evaluation of nordisk nytta as one that had not taken “so-called soft values” into account, especially regarding institutions dealing with culture, the Nordic languages, and research, and was therefore out of touch with what the Nordic populations regarded as “useful.”

Svenolof Karlsson, Guðrún Dager Garðarsdóttir, and Viveca Wiklund, eds., Nordisk Råds Blå bog 1995, Kuopio (Stockholm: Norstedts Tryckeri, 1996), 137.

The operationalisation of nordisk nytta in Nordic co-operation thus emerged in a context of budget cuts and the question of nordisk nytta became a question of institutional survival in many of the Nordic institutions. The term came to signify the essential core of Nordic co-operation, the “need-to-have” rather than the “nice-to-have” of Nordic co-operation. According to one official who worked in the Secretariat to the Nordic Council of Ministers in the late 1990s, this was indeed a commonly articulated understanding of nordisk nytta in the secretariat at the time.

Interview 1 with official from Nordic Culture Point, November 22, 2023.

This is hardly surprising, given that the then head of the Nordisk nytte working group, Søren Christensen, had become the Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 1996.

Nordiskt mervärde: An alternative or extension to nordisk nytta?

Following the criticism of the Nordisk nytte report, its conceptualisation of the nordisk nytta concept, and the ways this conceptualisation was applied to evaluate the institutional framework of official Nordic co-operation, nordiskt mervärde [literally, Nordic added value] emerged as a new concept in official handbooks and documents from late 1996 onwards.

Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Council, eds., Nordisk statutsamling 1990-1999. Del 1-2: 1990-1999, Nord, 2000:9 (Copenhagen: Nordic Council, Nordic Council of Ministers, 2000), 245.

Seemingly, nordiskt mervärde was initially preferred to nordisk nytta in institutions engaged in cultural co-operation, where the operationalisation of nordisk nytta had come up against the greatest resistance, and it appeared in the guidelines for the Nordic Culture Fund from 1997 onwards.

Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Council, 347; see also Lennartsson and Nolin, “Nordiska kulturfonden,” 73, 78–79, 118.

Yet, if nordiskt mervärde could initially be imagined as an alternative to nordisk nytta, for example in the cultural institutions that had fared poorly in the Nordisk nytte report, it quickly came to be incorporated alongside nordisk nytta as part of the raison d’être of Nordic co-operation. In 1999, both concepts appeared in the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Handbook for Institutions and in the standard statutes for Nordic institutions, where it was stipulated that the institutions of official Nordic co-operation ought to contribute to

creating a high Nordic profile and contribute to den nordiska nyttan so that the enterprise creates a nordiskt mervärde beyond the purely sector-specific [fackliga] cooperation results.
Nordic Council of Ministers and Nordic Council, Nordisk statutsamling 1990-1999. Del 1-2, 220; see also Lennartsson and Nolin, “Nordiska kulturfonden,” 119.

While the distinction between nytta and mervärde in the 1999 statutes is not entirely clear, mervärde seems to be conceptualised as an additional outcome of efforts that pursue the here undefined guiding principle of nordisk nytta. It is also worth noting that this outcome is defined as something that goes beyond the concrete results achieved from practical collaboration within the given sectors. Although the nature of this something extra was not expanded upon in the standard statutes, it has been noted that nordiskt mervärde can be seen as containing references to “Nordic values,” the values on which Nordic societies are claimed to be based.

Kharkina, “From Kinship to Global Brand,”2013, 97.

Nytta, with its allusion to the utilitarian, does not offer the same connotations.

The literal translation of the term nordiskt mervärde into English is “Nordic added value,” yet when it first entered the vocabulary of Nordic co-operation, it was mostly referred to as “Nordic synergy,”

E.g., Kharkina, 97.

although translations between the Scandinavian and English terms never seem to have been standardised. Nordic synergy became a central concept in the self-representation of official Nordic co-operation in the early 2000s. In Co-operation for Strength, an English-language informational brochure published by the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2005, “Nordic synergy” is defined as the idea that “Nordic co-operation is designed to offer participants more than individual countries can accomplish on their own” with references to ambitions to:

improve conditions for living, working, and doing business in the Nordic countries,
make the small Nordic countries stronger,
strengthen the international impact of Nordic values,
preserve Nordic languages, history, and traditions in an increasingly globalised world, and
adopt joint positions on issues to be debated in international forums.
Nordic Council of Ministers, “Co-Operation for Strength” (Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, Nordic Council, 2005), 5.

In addition to the above-mentioned link to “Nordic values,” a clear international dimension now manifested itself in the conceptualisation of “Nordic synergy.” This dimension reflected a strong contemporary orientation towards international arenas and challenges of globalisation in official Nordic co-operation. This was laid out, for example, in the Nordic prime ministers’ globalisation declaration from 2007, the so-called Punkaharju declaration.

See, e.g., Nordic Council of Ministers, “Det nordiske kompas: Islands formandsskabsprogram 2009” (Nordic Council of Ministers, Nordic Council of Ministers Secretariat, 2008); see also Dang, “‘Nordic Added Value’: A Floating Signifier and a Mechanism for Nordic Higher Education Regionalism.”

Nordic synergy was very clearly conceptualised in this context, reflecting the notion that the Nordic countries were stronger when acting together in international fora as well as in the face of global challenges. The next section takes a closer look at how nordisk nytta, nordiskt mervärde, and eventually also the English-language term Nordic added value developed in relation to the perhaps most important of those fora, the European Union.

Nordic added value and the Europeanisation of Nordic co-operation

The story of the rise to prominence of the principle and concept of Nordic added value in Nordic co-operation is entangled with the increasingly important role that the EU has played in all the Nordic countries, whether EU members or not, and the ways in which this has affected official Nordic co-operation. A Europeanisation of the Nordic region has taken place following the European Community’s efforts from 1986 onwards to pursue a fully-fledged Inner Market.

Tønnesson, “Tvil Om Nytten,” 2002, 133.

Indeed, it has been argued that Nordic co-operation has become more regional, European, and international since the early 1990s in particular, and that interactions at the European level have become a central element of official Nordic co-operation during that period.

Tobias Etzold, “Nordic Institutionalized Cooperation in a Larger Regional Setting,” in Nordic Cooperation. A European Region in Transition, ed. Johan Strang (Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2016), 147.

This has led to “a gradual Europeanisation of Nordic co-operation.”

Lucie Tunkrova, “The Nordic Countries’ ‘Exceptionalism’ in EU Environmental Policy,” Contemporary European Studies, no. 02 (2008): 23.

At the Nordic Council’s February-March session in 1995, the then Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen reassured the Nordic parliamentarians that the need for Nordic co-operation could not be questioned and that “no matter our different paths within European co-operation, the Nordic countries have never had as close and coinciding interests in relation to the European development [as now].”

Tønnesson, “Tvil Om Nytten,” 2002, 133.

Yet, as we have seen, the fact that three of the five Nordic countries were now members of the EU gave rise to a debate that ultimately impacted the reorientation of how Nordic region-building should be planned and operationalised.

Dang, “‘Nordic Added Value’: A Floating Signifier and a Mechanism for Nordic Higher Education Regionalism,” 6.

Indeed, the Nordic prime ministers promoted organisational reform of the Nordic Council and Nordic Council of Ministers with a view to make co-ordination and initiatives on the European level essential elements of Nordic co-operation. In 1996, the Nordic Council was reorganised according to a new pillarized structure that was supposed to focus its work around three geographically defined areas:

traditional inter-Nordic co-operation,
co-operation with “adjacent areas” (the Baltics, Northwestern Russia), and
co-operation within the EU and Europe more broadly.
Tønnesson, “Tvil Om Nytten,” 2002, 134; Opitz and Etzold, “Seeking Renewed Relevance,” 2.

As described above, it was largely within this context of the “Europeanisation” of Nordic co-operation that nordisk nytta was adopted as the principle of official Nordic co-operation in early 1995 – it has been noted that “the added value of Nordic cooperation needed to be redefined in relation to European integration.”

Opitz and Etzold, “Seeking Renewed Relevance,” 2.

When the English-language formulation Nordic added value became a settled concept in the vocabulary of Nordic co-operation in the late 2000s, it happened in close interaction with developments at the European level as well. Formulations such as “added value”, “value-added,” and the notion that specific programmes and initiatives “add value” to Nordic co-operation appeared occasionally throughout the 2000s, such as in the programmes for the presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2007 and 2010.

Nordic Council of Ministers, “The Nordic Region: A Region of Opportunity Close to You: Programme for The Finnish Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers 2007” (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2006); Nordic Council of Ministers, “The Nordic Region Pointing the Way Forward: Programme for the Danish Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers 2010” (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2009).

Yet, it was in the NordForsk commissioned policy brief Rethinking Nordic Added Value in Research that Nordic Added Value (all in capital letters) was first introduced as a concept in its own right.

Arnold, “Rethinking Nordic Added Value in Research.”

As will be discussed in further detail in the section on NordForsk in this report, the policy brief – authored by Erik Arnold from the consultancy firm Technopolis – was tied directly to efforts to evaluate Nordic research co-operation in relation to European research co-operation as institutionalised through the so-called European Research Area since 2000. Nordic added value was thus coined as a specific English-language concept in Nordic co-operation through efforts to Europeanise Nordic research co-operation.

In introducing Nordic Added Value, the policy brief explicitly referred to the guiding principle of research co-operation in the European Research Area, “European Added Value” (often abbreviated as EAV). Increasingly used across the European Union’s policy areas, the concept European added value had its origins in EU discussions around the emerging European single market and as a counterpoint to the growing euro-scepticism that emerged during the low growth and high unemployment experienced in European economies in the 1980s. In recent definitions, European added value has been described as “the raison d´être of the European Union” and “the essence of what the European Union stands for,” that is:

that the sum of the actions taken together will lead to better overall results for the participants than their individual actions can yield, and the belief that stronger collective action and shared sovereignty will therefore be beneficial for the Member States and their citizens.
Gaston Moonen, “Editorial: Why There Has to Be European Added Value,” ECA Journal, no. 3 (2020): 6; Gabriele Cipriani, “‘Adding Value’, the Raison D´être of the European Union,” ECA Journal, no. 3 (2020): 85–88.

The European added value concept developed in close interaction with the notion of there being a “cost of non-Europe,” that is, an economic benefit that would have been lost without the European common market.

Anthony Teasdale, “European Added Value: The Origins of an Idea Whose Time Has Come,” ECA Journal, no. 3 (2020): 134–40.

Later, European Added Value became linked to the legal foundations of the EU as well, being commonly referred to in the context of the introduction of the subsidiarity principle introduced through the 1992 Maastricht Treaty – the principle that decisions should be made at the most immediate or local level.

Daniel Tibor, “EU Added Value — a Categorical Imperative for EU Action?,” ECA Journal, no. 3 (2020): 8–18.

With regard to European cohesion policies, added value has been defined as “something which has been enabled or which would not have been done without [European] Community assistance,” while different types of added value have been identified: cohesion added value, political added value, policy added value, operational added value, learning added value,

John Bachtler and Sandra Taylor, “The Added Value of the Structural Funds: A Regional Perspective,” IQ-Net Thematic Paper on the Future of the Structural Funds, Glasgow., 2003; also Andrea Mairate, “The ‘Added Value’ of European Union Cohesion Policy,” Regional Studies 40, no. 2 (April 2006): 167–77.

and, with specific reference to Nordic efforts, territorial added value.

Lisa Hörnström, Lise Smed Olsen, and Lisa Van Well, “Added Value of Cross-Border and Transnational Cooperation in Nordic Regions” (Stockholm: Nordic Council of Ministers; Nordregio, 2012), 13.

In the field of research, science, and technology, European Added Value was developed in a number of framework programmes, justifying action by the European community in the field. While developing over time, those selection criteria generally revolved around questions of cohesion, scale, financial benefits, complementarity, and unification (of the European research field, i.e., through the development of uniform rules and standards).

Arnold, “Rethinking Nordic Added Value in Research,” 30–31.

Yet while European Added Value has been described by multiple commentators as enigmatic, lacking a clear or uniform definition, and offering different meanings to different EU stakeholders,

Tibor, “EU Added Value — a Categorical Imperative for EU Action?”; Tarschys, The Enigma of European Added Value.

fiscal understandings generally came to prevail over juridical ones from the 2000s onwards. From 2011, a “European Added Value Unit” has existed under the European Parliament Research Service, which, according to one description, “seeks to identify and quantify the potential economic gain from policy initiatives favoured by the Parliament in wide range of policy areas […] in a way that could boost Europe’s economic performance over time.”

Teasdale, “European Added Value.”

The concept of European added value thus clearly reflects the fact that it emerged in the context of economic integration through the development of the European single market.

The economic origin story of the conceptualisation of European added value is worth spending some time on, given the central role of the concept as a reference point from the outset of the process that saw Nordic added value become the central English-language term used for legitimising official Nordic co-operation. Hence, in the Rethinking Nordic Added Value in Research policy brief, European added value and Nordic added value were compared, and while it was argued that the “added value” of research co-operation at the Nordic and European levels were different on some accounts, not least given the informal dimension of Nordic added value, the two concepts were essentially treated as comparable.

E.g., Arnold, “Rethinking Nordic Added Value in Research,” 36.

Moreover, the policy brief specifically used the term “Nordic Added Value” when referring to the operationalisation of nordisk nytta in connection to the 1995 Nordisk nytte report without this prompting further reflections.

E.g., Arnold, 20–22.

The brief did not refer to nordiskt mervärde but instead equated Nordic added value with nordisk nytta, although in a way that encompassed both economic and socio-cultural connotations.

Arnold, 21–22.

As such, the English-language concept Nordic added value was retroactively aligned with an earlier description of the purpose and constitution of joint Nordic efforts that had been described as economistic and had caused the termination of a large number of Nordic institutions.

Although it was acknowledged that the operationalisation of the 1995 definition of nordisk nytta had been criticised for potentially undermining Nordic co-operation’s traditional function in maintaining a common Nordic identity. Arnold, 20–21.

In the transfer and adaptation of the concept from the European to the Nordic level, Nordic added value thus came to embody multiple layers of meaning and multiple conceptual composites, most notably nytta and mervärde, leaving the concept ambiguous.

Nordic added value in Nordic co-operation reform initiatives

During the last couple of decades, Nordic co-operation has gained renewed momentum and also faced substantial crises.

Liimatainen, “Nordic Added Value in Nordic Research Co-Operation,” 14–15; Strang, “Introduction: The Nordic Model of Transnational Cooperation?”

On the one hand, “Nordicness” has been in demand internationally. The performance of the individual Nordic countries in international rankings on social and economic parameters has gained significant attention at home and abroad, The Economist famously labelling the Nordic countries as “The next supermodel” in 2013.

“The next Supermodel,” The Economist, February 2, 2013, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/02/02/the-next-supermodel.

There has also been keen international interest in Nordic cuisine, Nordic noir television series, and supposed “Nordic” ways of living happily, with the adoption of words such as hygge, sisu, and lagom within the day-to-day vernacular.

E.g., Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About the Nordic Miracle (London: Jonathan Cape, 2014); cf. Lily Kelting, “New Nordic Cuisine: Performing Primitive Origins of Nordic Food,” in Contesting Nordicness: From Scandinaviaism to the Nordic Brand, eds. Jani Marjanen, Johan Strang, and Mary Hilson (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2022), 175–96; Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen, “Nordic Noir: Branding Nordicness as British Boreal Nostalgia,” in Contesting Nordicness: From Scandinaviaism to the Nordic Brand, eds. Jani Marjanen, Johan Strang, and Mary Hilson (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2022), 197–218; Strang, Marjanen, and Hilson, “A Rhetorical Perspective on Nordicness: From Creating Unity to Exporting Models.”

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, the “Nordic brand” was cultivated actively – and rather successfully – by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Johannes Magnus, “International Branding of the Nordic Region,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 12, no. 2 (August 1, 2016): 195–200; Strang, “The Rhetoric of Nordic Cooperation,” 127.

In that context, it has been argued that the increase in the use of the term nordiskt mervärde to some extent correlated with efforts to create a competitive and distinctive Nordic profile in the global arena.

Kharkina, “From Kinship to Global Brand,” 97.

This, moreover, at a time when Nordic cultural co-operation started to be framed with reference to the marketing-inspired notion of “the creative industries,” meaning that culture and creativity were portrayed as assets strengthening the Nordic region’s economic competitiveness.

See, e.g., Tom Fleming and Petra Nilsson-Andersen, “A Creative Economy. Green Paper for the Nordic Region,” Green Paper (Copenhagen: Nordic Innovation Centre; Nordic Council of Ministers, 2007); For a critical perspective on the rise of the notion of “the creative economy,” see Philip Schlesinger, “The Creative Economy: Invention of a Global Orthodoxy,” Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 30, no. 1 (2017): 73–90.

Moreover, the last decade and especially the last couple of years have seen a sharp rise in the relevance of and interest in security policy from a Nordic point of view, not least with the very recent Finnish and Swedish accessions to NATO.

E.g., Thorvald Stoltenberg, “Nordic Cooperation on Foreign and Security Policy,” vol. 9, 2009; Clive Archer, “The Stoltenberg Report and Nordic Security: Big Idea, Small Steps,” Danish Foreign Policy Yearbook, 2010, 43–74; Clive Archer and Pertti Joenniemi, “Nordic Security and Defence Cooperation: Northern Policies in a European Perspective,” in Nordic Cooperation (Routledge, 2015), 165–81; Tuomas Iso-Markku, Eeva Innola, and Teija Tiilikainen, “A Stronger North? Nordic Cooperation in Foreign and Security Policy in a New Security Environment,” Publications of the Government´s Analysis, Assessment and Research Activities (Helsinki: Finnish Prime Minister’s Office, 2018); Kristin M Haugevik and Ulf Sverdrup, “Ten Years on: Reassessing the Stoltenberg Report on Nordic Cooperation,” 2019.

On the other hand, the Nordic region has faced challenges that have sparked tensions between the countries and adversely affected Nordic co-operation, but which have also been seen as a signal for closer co-operation.

Matti Niemivuo and Lotta Viikari, “Nordic Cooperation at a Crossroads,” The Yearbook of Polar Law Online 10, no. 1 (2019): 103–31; Riksdagens framtidsutskotts, Nordens nya relevans, vol. 2018, Riksdagens framtidsutskotts publikation 7 (Helsinki: Riksdagens framtidsutskotts, 2018).

Some of these challenges are intra-Nordic in nature, such as the lack of a common public sphere, the continued decline in mutual language comprehension, and the seeming lack of interest in Nordic co-operation among Nordic politicians and ministerial officials,

On language comprehension, see, e.g., Lars-Olof Delsing and Katarina Lundin Åkesson, Håller Språket Ihop Norden?: En Forskningsrapport Om Ungdomars Förståelse Av Danska, Svenska Och Norska (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2005); Andrea Skjold Frøshaug and Truls Stende, “Does the Nordic Language Community Exist?” (Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, 2021). On the lack of political interest in the institutional Nordic co-operation framework, see, e.g., Torsten Borring Olesen and Johan Strang, “European Challenge to Nordic Institutional Cooperation: Past, Present and Future,” in Nordic Cooperation. A European Region in Transition, ed. Johan Strang (Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2016), 27. Also: Interview with Danish former Nordic Council parliamentarian, July 28, 2023.

some of whom regarded the co-operation framework as offering “limited political added value.”

Stellan Ottosson, “Fortsättning på reformen av Nordiska ministerrådet: En utvärdering av organisationsreformen 2005” (Nordic Co-operation Ministries, 2008), 6, 27.

Other challenges are global in scope, such as the climate crisis, financial crises, geopolitical tensions, and security policy challenges. In particular, the rise of exclusionary nationalism and populism and the consequent favouring of national priorities have posed challenges for the EU and international co-operation more widely. Moreover, this has put Nordic co-operation to the test, not least during the 2015 refugee crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, both of which saw a lack of intra-Nordic co-ordination and the temporary suspension of free movement between some of the Nordic countries.

Niemivuo and Viikari, “Nordic Cooperation at a Crossroads”; Katja Creutz et al., “Nordic Cooperation amid Pandemic Travel Restrictions,” FIIA Report (Helsinki: Finnish Institute of International Affairs, 2021).

In the face of internal tensions and differences of opinion, continued European integration, as well as pressing global challenges, the question about the political significance of Nordic co-operation has continued to shape it in its official form. In a sense, official Nordic co-operation has been characterised by a quest for political significance throughout the decades since the 1995 reform report, catalysing a perpetual drive for reform, especially in the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Opitz and Etzold, “Seeking Renewed Relevance”; Ottosson, “Fortsättning på reformen av Nordiska ministerrådet”; Resonans Kommunikation, “Evaluering af Reformarbejdet Nyt Norden i Nordisk Ministerråd 2014-2017,” 2018.

Against this backdrop, and on the basis of a mandate from the Ministers for Nordic Co-operation to reform the Nordic Council of Ministers and make Nordic co-operation more flexible, less bureaucratic, and more politically operational, the Nordic Council of Ministers’ secretariat under Dagfinn Høybråten’s leadership (2012-2019) sought to operationalise Nordic added value in its reform work. The purpose was to make Nordic co-operation more efficient and more politically useful, and to create an organisation that could achieve visible and measurable results so that Nordic co-operation could “create [nordisk nytte], contribute [merværdi] to all, and lead to concrete political results.”

Nordic Council of Ministers, Secretariat to the Nordic Council of Ministers, “Nyt Norden: Afrapportering på generalsekretærens moderniseringsopdrag (med samarbejdsministrenes beslutninger)” (Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, Secretariat to the Nordic Council of Ministers, 2014), 10; Nordic Council of Ministers, Secretariat to the Nordic Council of Ministers, “Nordens tid er nu: Nyt Norden 2.0 – næste fase af reformarbejdet” (Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, Secretariat to the Nordic Council of Ministers, 2016); Interview with Dagfinn Høybråten, December 5, 2023.

This, then, was when Nordic added value – discussed both in terms of nordisk nytta and nordiskt mervärde in the relevant documents – was operationalised and institutionalised as a means to measure, align, and showcase the effects of the work of the Nordic Council of Ministers and its subsidiary institutions. The ambition was to make the Nordic Council of Ministers a better tool for the policy makers in the Nordic governments by operationalising the slogan of Nordic added value for the sake of a practically oriented reform effort aimed, at the same time, at providing Nordic co-operation with more political content and usefulness. For the Secretariat, the goal, as stated in one reform paper, was to “contribute to results that create added value [merværdi] and make the Nordic region visible internally and externally” by:

initiating, launching, and following up on political decisions
developing knowledge as the foundation for common solutions
constructing networks for exchange of experiences and ideas.
Cited from Nordic Council of Ministers, Secretariat to the Nordic Council of Ministers, “Nyt Norden,” 54.

What was meant by Nordic added value was expanded upon in the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Strategy for Cultural Co-operation published at around the same time, which maintained that:

Fundamental to Nordic cultural co-operation is the principle of Nordic added value, i.e. that the collaboration involves areas where the Nordic countries have common interests and face common challenges.
Nordic Council of Ministers, Strategy for Nordic Cultural Co-Operation 2013-2020 (Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, 2016), 3.

It was in facing such common challenges through joint efforts that the Nordic Council of Ministers’ secretariat saw the potential for Nordic co-operation, provided that the efforts of the Nordic Council of Ministers and its subsidiary institutions could be mobilised to face them, and provided that the Nordic governments could be convinced about their usefulness in doing so.

Interview with Dagfinn Høybråten; Nordic Council of Ministers, Secretariat to the Nordic Council of Ministers, “Nyt Norden.”

Consequently, the Secretariat sought to align the different institutions under the Nordic Council of Ministers more closely to the Secretariat through a clearer model for institutional ownership. This included the operationalisation of Nordic added value through the regular issuing of grant letters as the basis for the individual institutions’ funding, which soon came to include sections outlining the intended Nordic added value [nordisk nytte] of the institutions’ ongoing and prospective projects.

See, for example, “Beviljningsbrev 2022 - Nordregio” (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2021).

The institutions were thereby supposed to become more immediately instrumental to the policy makers in the Nordic governments.

Nordic Council of Ministers, Secretariat to the Nordic Council of Ministers, “Nordens tid er nu,” 24; Interview with Dagfinn Høybråten.

In the quest for political relevance, Nordic added value thus became an unavoidable principle – or tool – for employees working in all branches of the Nordic Council of Ministers and its subsidiary institutions in the mid-to-late 2010s.

Nordic added value today – and in the future?

As discussed above, over the last three decades, the political legitimacy and significance of Nordic co-operation has been articulated through the concepts of nordisk nytta and nordiskt mervärde, and their various English-language translations. From the early 2010s onwards, the English-language term Nordic added value has become increasingly prominent. Especially in those Nordic organisations that prominently use English, the concept Nordic added value is today used frequently to state the purpose of joint activities. The concept is evoked prominently, for example, in the communications of Nordic research co-operation organisations such as NordForsk, Nordic Energy Research, and Nordregio.

Liimatainen, “Nordic Added Value in Nordic Research Co-Operation;” see also later in this report.

The two Scandinavian-language concepts are often used in parallel, almost synonymously with each other and with Nordic added value, even if a hierarchy of meaning can at times be identified between the two concepts – with contribution to nordisk nytta represented as the overarching goal of Nordic co-operation, whereas nordiskt mervärde is expressed in more practical terms as the outcome of activities. The standard statutes for Nordic institutions that were outlined in 1999 and which still form the basis of the statutes of many Nordic institutions today offer a good example of this (as discussed above).

Compare, e.g., with NordForsk’s statutes. “NordForsk-stadgar,” NordForsk, accessed March 1, 2024, https://www.nordforsk.org/sv/nordforsk-stadgar.

As the rest of this report also demonstrates, the term Nordic added value and its Scandinavian equivalents are now integrated and used far and wide within all branches of official Nordic co-operation, especially in respect of inter-ministerial co-operation, even if the meanings of the term differ among different institutions and individuals. Nevertheless, Nordic added value is not mentioned in the Vision 2030 programme, which outlines the current guidelines for official Nordic co-operation. According to the strategic objectives of Vision 2030, outlined by the Nordic prime ministers and adopted by the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2019, the Nordic region is to become the most sustainable and integrated region in the world by 2030, and all co-operation under the auspices of the Nordic Council of Ministers is supposed to serve this purpose. The vision is linked to three strategic priorities: “a green Nordic Region”, “a competitive Nordic Region”, and “a socially sustainable Nordic Region”. These three strategic priorities respond to many pressing challenges such as climate change, pollution and threats to biodiversity, and challenges facing democracy, integration, and inclusion, but also emphasise the Nordics in a global context.

Nordic Council of Ministers, “Our Vision 2030 | Nordic Cooperation.”

Somewhat paradoxically, at the same time as Nordic added value is not mentioned in the primary strategic document outlining the politically desired direction for official Nordic co-operation, the principle is increasingly being systematically incorporated into the institutional framework for co-operation. Nordisk nytta is, for example, increasingly used as a set category when individual institutions under the Nordic Council of Ministers are asked to evaluate their efforts in annual reports, or when their tasks and projects are being outlined in grant letters.

See the section on the Nordic Council of Ministers and its Secretariat for further discussions of this.

One possible interpretation of this seeming paradox is that Nordic added value no longer serves as a central legitimising principle for official Nordic co-operation at a political level but instead purely serves as an instrument for pursuing whatever visions are outlined for Nordic co-operation at a given time – having little, if any, visionary or forward-looking value. Or, alternatively, that Nordic added value is so central to Nordic co-operation that the ambitions and priorities of Vision 2030 merely represent the current configuration of the idea, meaning that the vision and Nordic added value are in fact two sides of the same coin.

Both interpretations seem to exist within the institutions of official Nordic co-operation today, yet no matter the interpretation, it seems clear that the meanings of Nordic added value have evolved following the launch of Vision 2030 and will continue to do so. Sustainability, for example, has increasingly begun to appear in discussions of Nordic added value in recent years.

See the section on the Nordic Council of Ministers and its Secretariat for further discussions of this.

Hence, the principle of Nordic added value is still evolving in Nordic inter-ministerial co-operation, and it is increasingly being operationalised in the commissioning of projects as well as in the assessment and prioritisations of the individual institutions under the Nordic Council of Ministers. To this end, there are good reasons to assess how the concept is understood and used in the different institutions under the Nordic Council of Ministers, and how such understandings and uses have come about.

The remainder of this report therefore outlines the histories, understandings, and uses of Nordic added value in the individual institutions of the Nordic Council of Ministers, beginning with the Nordic Council of Ministers itself and its Secretariat.

Summary

This chapter has explored the origins, evolution, and contemporary usage of the concept of Nordic added value within official Nordic co-operation. It has demonstrated how, over the course of three decades, a term that was originally introduced to justify budget cuts has become a guiding principle deeply integrated in official Nordic co-operation. The complex and multifaceted nature of this process has been demonstrated, including multiple significant changes in both the form and meaning of the concept. Furthermore, it has been shown how these changes have been fundamentally linked with the development of official Nordic co-operation, from the crisis triggered by European integration in the mid-1990s to the brand-building initiatives and incorporation of the EU-inspired added value discourse in the new millennium and the last decade’s attempts to operationalise the concept to enhance the efficiency and political relevance of Nordic co-operation. Finally, the chapter looked at Vision 2030, which dictates the present and future work of the Nordic Council of Ministers, as it posits the year 2030 as the target year for the Nordic Council of Ministers’ ambition to make the Nordic region the most sustainable and integrated region in the world. The chapter notes that the vision does not explicitly mention the Nordic added value principle, an aspect that potentially contributes to tensions between the political objectives and goals of Nordic co-operation and the institutional framework of co-operation.