Baltic States and Finland are vibrant regions with similar sized population and historical experience. Their adaptation to the new digital era is undermined by lack of professionals. Across the EU a major reason for labour shortage in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields professionals lies in the insufficient supply of higher education graduates due to stagnant enrolment rates in STEM fields. The aim of this research addresses the existing trends in tertiary STEM education in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This includes the tasks of analysing the quantitative trends (enrolment and graduation) in the HEIs of Baltics and Finland over the period from 2013 to 2017 as well as analysing the structural changes taking place in the respective higher education systems from 2013 to 2018. The Baltic States combined have numerical advantages in terms of young people, and young professionals (25−34 year olds) with tertiary education. However, in terms of the number of students and graduates Finland is at the forefront. The largest proportion of students enrolling in STEM fields lie within Finland (33.9%) whereas the smallest one is in Latvia (24.0%). Finland is also a leader in the share and total number of information and communication technology (ICT) graduates. In the period 2013−2017 Latvia’s results improved in two (5th and 6th) of the STEM study fields, Lithuania made a remarkable result in one STEM (6th) field by 46.9%, Estonia saw a relative increase in the 5th and 6th study field while Finland experienced a numerical decrease in all three STEM fields.

Today technological progress is reshaping global economic development and changing the overall welfare of societies. Therefore, it is important to assess challenges and readiness of the European Union to use its capacity to ensure that technologies benefit people and bring them towards more inclusive societies enhancing opportunities to use artificial intellect for making health, education, agriculture, services and manufacturing industries more efficient and user friendly. The Digital Economy and Society Index analyses the digital performance of the EU Member States across five main dimensions: connectivity, human capital, use of internet, integration of digital technology, digital public services. However, despite intention to jointly develop Digital Single Market, the gap between the EU top digital countries and less digitally advanced countries remains large. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the digital performance indicators of the EU countries, in particular focusing to Poland and Latvia to assess their progress and potential of their human capital’s digital skills. The research is based on theoretical literature studies on industrial revolution stages, European Union Commission documents, indexes and publications available in relevant public institutions such as ministries and industry reports. The research employed monographic method, analysis and synthesis methods as well as graphical data analysis. The research results give evidence that currently Poland’s human capital is significantly better prepared for making use of future digital economy challenges than Latvia’s human capital, and there is a close link between countries’ R and D expenditures proportion of GDP and their human capital’s readiness to integrate in digital economy.

In 2018, the Polish Trade Inspection in the whole country carried out an assessment of unrefined vegetable oils and olive oils of various categories. First of all, the correctness of marking, physicochemical parameters, storage conditions, traceability of products and their dates of minimum durability were assessed. In total 380 batches of products were inspected. Results of the examination show that producers cheat consumers by providing, for example, untrue nutritional values or false information about dietetic or health traits. The purpose of this article is to determine what consumers should know to verify the correctness of information on product labels independently. The theoretical part of the article was based on the EU regulations analysis regarding vegetable oils properties, including the characteristics of olive oil. The empirical part concerned data from Polish Trade Inspection reports, as well as statistical data on production and sale of oil and olive oil from the portal Statista. In this article methods of documentary research and comparative analysis were used. For the main conclusion it can be assumed that products of poor quality or incorrect labeling can be found in each product category; therefore, consumers should pay attention to such elements as information in their native language, a full list of ingredients, or correct indication of nutritional values.

Social innovations are recognized as one of the most promising innovations in solving social problems in rural areas. When assessing the creation of social innovation, it should be noted that not only the goal and the result but also the whole process of creation of social innovation is important. The analysis of theoretical and practical research has revealed that traditional methods of solving problems in rural areas are not working, which consequently leads to search for innovative solutions. The most obvious social problems in rural areas, such as an aging society, youth departure, lack of breakthrough and innovative ideas, etc. can be noticed when assessing factors of social environment. At this stage, the solutions sought through the prism of social innovation can become those that will ensure the wellbeing of the rural area and support people living there. Social innovation is widely spread at the level of the European Union; however, in Lithuania, social innovation is taking just the first steps. The article analyses the case of Sėlynė village in Rokiškis region, during which social innovation that succeeded to unite rural community has been created. The article aims to analyse the process of creation of social innovation in rural areas from the theoretical point of view and to present the case of Sėlynė village of Rokiškis region. The main problem is the complex understanding of the creation process of social innovation.

The economic situation of Lithuanian agricultural sector faces with challenges in regards to family farms’ income instability and income discrepancies between family farms. The aim of this paper is to assess the economic sustainability of Lithuanian sector at farm level across farm size classes in terms of physical size and by specialization. Furthermore, as the sustainability construction index method was employed as basis to conduct the research, the methodology aspects related to the number of indicators included in the set of indicators and the estimation of thresholds of sustainability intervals were empirically analysed. The findings of economic sub-index assessment indicates very good level of Lithuanian family farms as 68% of the sample farms were defined by medium level of economic sustainability. The assessment of family farms’ economic sustainability by specialization revealed that the horticulture farms performed the highest economic sustainability and, at the other end of spectrum, the COP farms achieved the lowest economic sustainability. As regards the physical size of farms, the best economic sustainability was observed on the smallest farms in terms of size and on the largest farms, of less than 5 ha and from 500 ha or over, respectively.

Social entrepreneurship plays an increasing role in society. It is evidenced not only by the inclusion of a section on social entrepreneurship in the Europe 2020 strategy but also by the engagement of European countries in making legal documents on social entrepreneurship as well as designing support programmes in order to help entrepreneurs to start up a social entrepreneurship business. The research aim is to characterise the legal aspects of social entrepreneurship and support instruments for the promotion of social entrepreneurship in the Baltic States. In order to achieve the aim, the research analysed legal acts and strategic policy documents regulating social entrepreneurship in Latvia as well as analysed the legal framework for social entrepreneurship in Lithuania. To do the analysis, the research examined the kinds of support for starting up a social entrepreneurship business in the Baltic States. The research has found that no uniform definition of social entrepreneurship is available in Europe, which does not result in a unanimous opinion on what a social enterprise should be. In the Baltic States, the Social Enterprise Law has been passed in Latvia and Lithuania; besides, the laws mainly focus on the integration of target groups into society, addressing no other essential problems that could be solved by means of social entrepreneurship, e.g. environmental protection.

It is neccessary for the Regional Universities (RU) to strengthen their regional role. The reason behind such trend is the increased economic and regional differences between regions which applies also to Latvia. The aim of this research is to define the contribution of the RU to the regional development. The research included analysis of scientific sources, correlation and analysis of variance. It was determined that there is a positive correlation 0.979 between the number of students of RU and corresponding regional Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita; thus the RU have a positive impact on the regional development while other drawbacks and problems exist.

One of the most often mentioned competence in the surveyed literature is problem solving. It is also one of the key skills for the sustainable development of society. The article includes analysis of pedagogical approaches like project-based, problem-based learning and enquiry-based learning, as well as describes the use of design thinking as one of the problem solving approaches in higher education. As mathematics studies at universities play an important role in developing problem solving skills, an empirical study was carried out to identify the pedagogical approaches used by mathematics teachers and to illustrate the development of problem solving skills in mathematics studies at universities in Latvia. It includes a survey of mathematics teachers in Latvia aimed at identifying their experience in implementing different pedagogical approaches to mathematics and assessing the extent to which these methods help develop problem solving skills. The answers of mathematics teachers show that problem solving skills are developed at the middle level, which means only for the use in a certain situation (that is slightly different from previously known). The most effective approach to promoting problem-solving skills is the so-called context approach, which means focusing on the practical task related to a specialty. In the empirical study self-assessment method is used and the results are based only on respondents’ opinion.

Rapid technology development has had an evident impact on the financial sector during the last eight years. The financial sector experiences changes and it is important for the contemporary financial organizations to set a sustainable business perspective through competency management to ensure competitiveness. The current paper additionally focusses on fintech. Information technology development and competency management are the basis of the research. Authors of this research performed literature review to clarify the technology management competency model proposed by Doggett, McGee and Scott (2013) with the purpose of customizing the model for finance and technology knowledge-intensive fintech companies.

Fragmentation of private property (142 thousand private forest owners) cause the challenge for governing forests, because forests are part of wider forest ecosystems, but at the same time narrowly assigned by private borders. Land restitution put the new pressures on path dependent management and new possibilities and responsibilities (that were emergent features of private forest governance). This article is part of doctoral thesis about the common governance of private forests with particular aim to focus on describing knowledge and experience exchange in private forest owners’ networks in this paper. The research question for this article is to help to find out how the translation of experience and knowledge manifest itself in private forest owners’ networks? The best theoretical model to fit this situation is the concept of translation from actor-network theory and emergent norm theory. Case study approach was selected to follow actors in forest owners’ networks. The cases are forest owners’ cooperatives, forest owners NGO’s, as well as other forms, in particular, forest extension services and cases where an emergent process can be seen. The empirical material shows that translation of experience and knowledge manifest itself in few important ways, namely, at first, in a negotiation of needs and agreement on private forest owners’ needs; secondly, in stewardship role of multi-functional actors; thirdly, in emerging and evolving legislative norms. A multi-functional actor is a term offered in order to reveal a wide range of mediation forms in multicultural multi nature of forests as governed property and forests as integral part of ecosystems.