Latest content
Our latest updates, thoughts, and events — as they roll out.
Finland’s first energy-efficiency Behaviour Change Hackathon took place in the capital earlier this week. Organised by Demos Helsinki and leading energy-efficiency firm Granlund, the event brought together coders, energy experts and behaviour scientists for a one-of-a-kind hackathon. The diverse group of participants was divided into five teams (with one coder, behavioural scientist and…
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The ClimateLaunchpad jury has selected the 12 finalists to the world’s largest climate innovation competition from over 50 applicants. The 12 finalists will be pitching their concepts on a Boot Camp Final Show, May 7th 2:30-4:30 pm at Aalto Design Factory in Otaniemi. Want to join? Sign up for the…
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Europe’s largest cleantech business idea competition, Climate LaunchPad 2015, kicks off its second edition! Students, start-ups and entrepreneurs are invited to submit their cleantech ideas. All entries are judged on their impact on climate change, their growth potential and on skills and enthusiasm. The most promising entries gain access to…
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The Circular Design Toolkit helps policymakers move beyond recycling by focusing on upstream design decisions that shape sustainable value chains and industrial transformation.
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Drawing on almost five years of Cities Mission implementation, Demos Helsinki and its partners from Dark Matter Labs and the Mission Board argue that mission governance has reached policy readiness. Its mechanisms have been tested, its governance infrastructure is in place, and it offers a transferable model for delivering on EU strategic priorities at scale.
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Finland managed the Covid-19 pandemic comparatively well. Yet the longer the crisis lasted, the more visible the limits of the governance system became. This brief examines what a prolonged crisis revealed about institutional strength, societal vulnerabilities, and the kind of governance future crises demand.
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What does a stronger Europe actually require? Demos Helsinki’s comments on the State of the Union.
September 18, 2026
Drawing on three EU-funded research projects, we examine the tensions behind von der Leyen’s State of the Union address. Technological sovereignty risks deepening the dependencies it aims to reduce; climate resilience requires funding architecture that lets mitigation and adaptation reinforce each other; and Europe’s strength cannot be measured by economic indicators alone. A stronger Europe, we argue, depends less on ambition than on governance capable of delivering it.
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The next frontier for circularity is governance
September 17, 2026
For cross-cutting policy issues, like the transition to circularity, Demos Helsinki has developed a model that works: beating uncertainty through action, empowering relevant stakeholders with autonomy in problem solving, building a shared coordination structure, and adapting through learning what works. The model has been proven to move the circularity agenda forward, despite its complexity and fluctuating political significance.
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Governing with cities: Europe’s overlooked governance infrastructure
July 21, 2026
The Cities Mission functioned as a natural experiment that revealed an overlooked property of European governance: cities do not merely implement policy more effectively; they generate governing capacity and governance knowledge that Europe should intentionally incorporate into policy design through a revised multilevel governance architecture.
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