Silva Mertsola

Public administrations are tasked with finding effective and efficacious solutions to complex societal challenges. Simultaneously, they must ensure that their processes are legitimate. Silva supports governments in aligning their governance arrangements with these demands.

Silva is a doctoral researcher in political theory at the University of Stockholm where she studies the tension between democracy and public administration. Before her time at Demos Helsinki, Silva worked with official statistics at the Nordic Council of Ministers and with rights-based development at an international NGO.

At Demos Helsinki, Silva’s focus is on bridging the gap between empirical and philosophical academic research and the daily operations of governments. She has worked with multiple ministries, public agencies, and third sector clients in developing novel governance approaches. Her project references include, for example, the Steering2020 project that resulted in the Humble Governance model, a stakeholder collaboration process for the National Audit Office of Finland, and work on housing first governance for Crisis UK.