About me

Gorm Winthers Biography

Gorm Winther, MSc in Economics, PhD, was Professor Emeritus at Aalborg University and a former faculty member of Greenland University. A highly respected international scholar and consultant, he has dedicated over four decades to advancing research on social, economic, and political development in Greenland and the Arctic. His work is widely recognized for its depth, rigor, and practical impact.

Moreover, he is a recognized authority on employee participation in decision-making, employee ownership, cooperative enterprises, workers' self-management in Yugoslavia, economic democracy, and the theory of the labor-managed economy. He has published extensively on these topics in leading academic journals and edited volumes, and his work combines rigorous theoretical analysis with careful empirical investigation. Collectively, his publications offer important insights into alternative forms of enterprise organization and their implications for efficiency, equity, and democratic governance. 

He has led major international research initiatives, including the consortium on the project Political Economy of Northern Regional Development (POENOR), and served as Project Leader and Consultant for the SEPA project (Human Security, Models of Codetermination, and Arctic Peoples' Participation in Decision-Making). His expertise has guided governments, municipalities, and corporations, including the Greenland Home Rule Government, multiple Greenlandic municipalities, Tele Greenland Inc., the Greenland Trade Union, the Canadian mining company Crew Corporation, and the North Atlantic Group (Greenland and the Faroe Islands) in the Danish Parliament.

An influential thought leader, he has contributed to international expert groups on Arctic Economies and Livelihoods and helped develop innovative online curricula at Finland's University of the Arctic. He chaired the Working Group on Sustainable and Economic Development under ICARP II for the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and led the Danish Power and Democracy Project (Magtudredningen), demonstrating his expertise in governance, policy, and participatory decision-making. He also served on the Committee for Development and Economy under the Greenland Self-Government Commission.

Earlier in his career, he was Course Director and resource person for the Participation, Workers' Control, Workers' Self-Management program and the Economy and Democracy program at the Interuniversity Centre of Postgraduate Studies in Dubrovnik (1984–1999). He a Visiting Researcher at Cornell University's Program on Participation and Labor-managed Systems, conducted by Professor Jaroslav Vanek at the Department of Economics twice in 1984/85 and 1990/91. From 1998 to 2015, he served on the Board of the European Federation of Employee Share Ownership in Brussels, where he is now an Honorary Member, reflecting his lifelong commitment to advancing Business democracy, employee ownership, cooperatives, workers' self-management, and economic and social development across the U.S., Denmark, Yugoslavia, and the Arctic.