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Our latest updates, thoughts, and events — as they roll out.
An Academic Advisory Board has been appointed to Demos Helsinki to strengthen the impact of its scientific research activities. In 2023, Demos Research Institute will have 12 ongoing scientific research projects, four of which will also have an interaction role. The members of the Advisory Board are Professor of Sustainable…
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This autumn, Demos Helsinki has won several large grants for research projects from the most competitive research funding programs in the world. This strengthens Demos Helsinki’s research capabilities and positions our team strongly in the European and Finnish research ecosystems. NetZeroCities We are a research partner in the…
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In 2020, Demos Helsinki joined forces with an unlikely group of member organizations, activists, and professionals who are capable of initiating a Transformation. We called it UNTITLED. UNTITLED has grown into a global Alliance that aims to reimagine the central institutions of our society and to experiment on how 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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