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Our latest updates, thoughts, and events — as they roll out.
This autumn, Demos Helsinki welcomed Anna Björk (D.Soc.Sc), Kari Jalonen (D.Sc. Econ.), Lauri Holappa (D.Soc.Sc), and Niina Meriläinen (PhD).
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The Untitled alliance, spanning from the Nordics to Australia, is here to stay. This week marks the beginning of a decade-long initiative to build the society of the future. An idea of a journey of transformation roughly a year ago has turned into a reality for 400 people from over…
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Demos Helsinki has been working towards societal transformation for the past 15 years. There are now 50 of us. In 2019 we worked on 138 projects and in almost 30 countries. The previous decade is now wrapped up and the new one has truly brought enormous challenges. In the midst…
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This report shares how young people aged 14-19 helped shape Scotland’s Horizon Scanning through a participatory foresight process co-designed with Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament. It reveals insights on young people’s perspectives on topics such as climate, technology, democracy, and society more broadly, and shows how engaging them meaningfully can strengthen anticipatory governance. The methodology offers learnings and tools for governments seeking to embed long-term thinking into policy, and build trust and momentum towards shared large-scale goals.
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This report, created in collaboration with the EU Horizon-funded LIKE-A-PRO project and over 50 food experts across sectors and regions, underscores the urgent need to change the default protein production and consumption within the next two decades.
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How can countries strengthen their capacity for long-term governance and ensure that future generations are taken into account in decision-making? In this white paper, we highlight ways to promote anticipatory governance based on the views of key Finnish stakeholders. By translating the Finnish experience into a broader context, we aim to provide universally applicable strategies for advancing long-term governance and promoting intergenerational justice.
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Imaginaries on Sustainability Transformation – Report outlines three positive futures
May 19, 2025
Imagining futures where society has successfully undergone a sustainability transformation helps us envision a world in which today’s major negative trends have been brought under control. But what kind of positive futures have been proposed in recent years? At the request of the Finnish Expert Panel for Sustainable Development, Demos Helsinki conducted a literature review and drafted three preliminary visions of such futures.
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The anticipatory policy cycle: not just preparing for the future, but influencing it
May 14, 2025
Governments that invest in foresight-driven policymaking are better positioned to shape the conditions that they operate in. This is how to build policies that both anticipate and influence the future.
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Innovating urban development: Lessons from M4EG & moving beyond growth
April 17, 2025
Two key lessons from our work in the Mayors for Economic Growth project, in collaboration with UNDP: 1) Innovation needs to occur at multiple levels and 2) If we’re to be effective, we must remain humble.
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