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Our latest updates, thoughts, and events — as they roll out.
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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We are pleased to announce that the UNDP’s Istanbul Innovation Days (IID), taking place in March 2025, will focus on shaping the next generation of public institutions for a secure and prosperous world.
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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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The report provides insights into how the dominant ways of thinking about growth have taken shape and become entrenched: What has changed over the decades? And what might the future look like? Finnish discourse is also placed in the broader context of international societal and scientific debates, as well as global shifts in the operating environment.
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With the increasing culture of applying piloting as part of technology innovation, the need for understanding its societal implications is becoming more crucial. With the aim of understanding better the power relations, tensions and agencies pivotal to negotiating and embedding ethics across processes, we consider utilizing a framework of “design logics” to the data.
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Stockholm is the second stop in the Smart Retro programme
January 20, 2015
After the successful first Peloton Smart Retro Innovation Camp in Lahti, Finland, our programme now moves into its second phase in Stockholm: the testing period. Why Stockholm? In 2005, the City of Stockholm launched the slogan “Stockholm, the Capital of Scandinavia”, pointing at the City’s ambition of establishing Stockholm as a commercial node, especially…
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“Within one hour, we’d had a business idea and we started to develop it further.”
December 10, 2014
We interviewed three participants about their experience at the first Peloton Smart Retro Innovation Camp in Lahti. What were your expectations for the camp? “An international crowd interested in developing cities.” Ulla-Maija Kemppi, Citycon “New contacts. Expertise that we lack ourselves. Technical know-how.” Topi Saari, Meido “That it would open up…
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20 Smartups to Watch
November 19, 2014
The emergence of services and technologies in the intersection of physical and digital changes both. Rather than everything being digital or physical, everything becomes something else. This something else is currently being defined by “smartups”. Demos Helsinki along with a global panel of carefully selected panel of experts in startup acceleration,…
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