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Our latest updates, thoughts, and events — as they roll out.
In Imagining Change Through Science – Demos Helsinki Research Encounters, we explored how science and research have shaped societal change.
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Demos Helsinki is currently involved in 14 Horizon Europe projects. From exploring the societal impacts of new technologies to tackling climate challenges, these projects reflect a growing demand for research that sparks systemic change. Discover how we are working across disciplines to shape fairer, more sustainable futures.
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These three research projects are: 1) Reducing polarisation via material participation (MaDem); 2) Coastal waters under pressure – safeguarding a healthy Gulf of Finland in a changing geopolitical and environmental landscape (CoWup); and 3) Safe Water for All (WaterFall).
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This policy brief focuses on short-term action (2026-2028) around AI governance and provides practical guidelines for experts and policymakers. It introduces a framework that embeds democratic pillars — participation, freedom, equality, transparency, knowledge, and the rule of law — directly into the entire AI lifecycle.
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Amid the complex and persistent challenges of sustainability transitions, experimental governance has emerged as a way to foster reflexivity, learning, and policy innovation through diverse participatory practices. This paper examines the role of transition arena methodologies in expanding and deepening civic engagement in low-carbon transitions, specifically through seven experimental processes focused on “climate-wise housing” in Finland in 2023. These experiments combined digital and in-person facilitation in an attempt to involve citizens in co-producing actionable insights on climate-smart behaviors, building renovations, and renewable energy adoption, hitherto directing the envisioned transition. The research explores three “avenues” of widening participation in transition arenas, namely expanding, complementing, and opening such arenas to explore questions regarding the potential and limitations of widening transition arena participation and the impact of such breadth on the depth of citizen engagement. Findings highlight trade-offs between different scopes and modes of citizen participation and reveal how participatory processes shape public engagement and policy responsiveness. By suggesting four implications on designing and implementing citizen engagement processes, the study contributes to a nuanced understanding of participation in transition governance and its implications for sustainability transformations.
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While substantial efforts have been made to identify and address issues of environmental justice in urban areas, the question of how to consider and plan for the concerns of humans and other species remains a major challenge. This paper provides a conceptualisation of what ‘justice’ might mean from a multispecies justice (MSJ) perspective within the contexts of nature-based solutions (NBS) and urban sustainability planning. We offer a wider conceptualisation of representation, distribution and agency compared with dominant framings in NBS scholarship and provide exemplar cases on how to integrate these concepts in planning discourse. We critically discuss some of the challenges and opportunities of considering MSJ when confronted by established procedures and practices in NBS science and decision-making, focusing on (i) moving beyond existing standards for biodiversity conservation; (ii) embracing MSJ as a process and practice; and (iii) building the capacity of NBS planners to work with MSJ.
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Join us for an interactive deep-dive learning experience on imagining, structuring, organising and mobilising for long-term & systemic societal change. Hosted by Transition Collective in partnership with TIAL and Demos Helsinki.
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The secret ingredient of the first generation platform business
March 26, 2018
The end of platforms as we have known them seems to be around the corner. This blog is the first chapter in our blog series “Rise and fall of the platform business”.
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Rise and fall of the platform business
March 26, 2018
The end of platforms as we have known them seems to be around the corner.
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Can Africa leapfrog to low-carbon energy era?
March 15, 2018
Mobile phones allowed Africans to skip the landline stage of development and jump right to the digital age. Today Kenya is the world leader in mobile payments. Are they now leading the way to low-carbon energy era, too? By definition, leapfrogging means “surpass or overtake another to move into a…
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