Latest content

Our latest updates, thoughts, and events — as they roll out.

All
  • All
  • AI
  • Business
  • Cities
  • Civil service
  • Construction
  • Democracy
  • Economy
  • Foresight
  • Health & Wellbeing
  • Industry & innovation
  • Justice
  • Public governance
  • Skills & work
  • Society
  • Sustainability & climate action
  • Sustainability governance
  • Technology

Governments can steer with wellbeing at the core (but nobody said it was easy)

Governments keep promising change and then hitting the same walls with the old machinery. Reorienting governance around human wellbeing is both urgent and possible, and the work continues even when the political climate turns.


→ Continue reading

Economic policy is no longer enough

Economic policy cannot be a replacement for good governance. In this part of human history, it is understanding what is at stake — profoundly human wishes for a dignified and meaningful life — that will have to shape all policy, including economic policy.


→ Continue reading

Finland, what is our promise for future generations? 

Foresight Friday 2025 brought together policymakers and global experts to discuss Finland’s long-term responsibilities to future generations and intergenerational fairness. The question remains open, and it belongs to all of us: what is our promise for future generations?


→ Continue reading

Demos Helsinki discusses Finnish schools in the latest issue of Monocle

Juha Leppänen, head of democracy and capabilities research area at Demos Helsinki, sat down with Monocle’s Matt Alagiah to discuss Finnish education. Why are arts and skills classes mandatory in Finnish schools? Monocle investigates. You can read more about Monocle here and purchase the 2015 Hospitality Issue from this link.


→ Continue reading

Get Naked with Nearables

Last summer, I started talking with an American professor while waiting for a non-existent ferry in Istanbul. I soon found out that he happened to be one of the few early developers of the original iPhone and had only recently left the company. We joked about Nokia, and later during…


→ Continue reading

Kvalitid wins the Peloton Smart Retro pitch contest

The second Peloton Smart Retro Innovation Camp brought together 13 innovative startups from all over Europe in Stockholm. The participants designed tests with larger partner companies and the public sector. The camp concluded in a pitch show won by Kvalitid. Kvalitid is a service that provides apartment buildings with domestic help…


→ Continue reading

Towards more systemic crisis governance: lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic in Finland

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.


→ Continue reading

Better is possible: why — and how — business leadership can be renewed

Decades of low growth in Finland may be a symptom of a weakened capacity for renewal inside organisations, including the country’s top businesses. In this report, we explore the role that Finnish companies play in the current growth environment and document what business leaders think should be done next. We conclude with key recommendations for boards and executive teams to create the conditions for a renewed purpose in business, one that fits the current Finnish context and reveals underused capacity for renewal.


→ Continue reading

Sufficiency in Everything — Understanding and living within the limits of “enough”

Finland, like all countries of the Global North, is currently dependent on economic growth. Yet future growth may be very limited and uncertain – and decoupling it from increasing environmental harm will not be easy. Could the principle of sufficiency help us navigate towards better futures?


→ Continue reading
All
  • All
  • AI
  • Business
  • Cities
  • Civil service
  • Construction
  • Democracy
  • Economy
  • Foresight
  • Health & Wellbeing
  • Industry & innovation
  • Justice
  • Public governance
  • Research
  • Skills & work
  • Society
  • Sustainability & climate action
  • Sustainability governance
  • Technology

Master class: Institutionalising for impact

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.


→ Continue reading