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Nordic Legal Education Network (NORLEN)

Nordic Legal Education Network is a group of professionals affiliated with Nordic universities who, through the exchange of experiences and joint reflection, aim to enhance the quality of legal education.

Background

Increasing societal complexity, digitalization, internationalization, and more diverse student populations are raising the demands for relevance, innovation, and pedagogical quality in legal education. NORLEN serves as a platform to meet these challenges. It provides a space for legal educators to share experiences, reflect together, and develop new knowledge about teaching and learning. Our goal is to strengthen the pedagogical competence of educators and to highlight legal didactics as a key part of the legal academic field.

Who are we?

The network consists of participants from several Nordic universities, including the University of Bergen (UiB), the University of Oslo (UiO), UiT The Arctic University of Norway (UiT), Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Uppsala University, University of Innlandet (INN) and Linköping University (LiU). A steering group with representatives from different Nordic countries coordinates joint initiatives, develops applications for external funding, and facilitates conferences, exchanges, and publications.

Purpose

NORLEN aims to be an inclusive Nordic network for educators in legal and jurisprudential disciplines. The network seeks to promote academic collaboration, the sharing of teaching resources, and the continued development of education within the field of law.

Membership — principles

Membership is open to all institutions and individuals engaged in teaching in legal or jurisprudential disciplines.
Membership is an opportunity rather than an obligation. Each institution determines its own level of participation.

What Membership Entails

Visibility: Member institutions may have their logo displayed on the NORLEN website.
Participation in Activities: Members receive invitations to the network’s workshops, seminars, and meetings.
Hosting: Institutions may be invited to host physical or digital events. Hosting is voluntary.
Input and Influence: Members are invited to contribute input on themes and topics, for example in connection with Nordic dean-level meetings.
Resource Sharing: Members have the opportunity to share teaching materials, experiences, and examples of good practice within the network.The network is open and seeks to include educators and researchers from across the Nordic region who share our commitment to legal didactics.

Would you like to join the network? Here is the link to the online form.

Project steering group

Activities

Date	Activity
October 22, 2026	Webinar
February 16, 2027	NORLEN Conference, Oslo: How to Educate Future Law Students
April 1, 2027	Call for Abstracts – Anthology
August 26–27, 2027	Writers’ Workshop – Anthology
December 1, 2027	Deadline for Submission – Anthology

Every other year, the network organizes a conference where participants present new research in legal didactics as well as ongoing projects aimed at improving quality of legal education
The network is establishing a Nordic journal for legal didactics—a digital, peer-reviewed publication platform that welcomes both scholarly articles and concrete examples of effective teaching practices in legal education.
The network will also develop workshops and seminar series where educators can explore new teaching methods, forms of assessment, and technological tools. We aim to facilitate short-term exchange stays for students involved in teaching activities and for educators who wish to learn from others’ teaching practices.