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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.


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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.


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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?


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Wärtsilä, Tieto, St1, Fortum and Demos Helsinki launch Innovation Community initiative to speed clean energy targets

Wärtsilä, Tieto, St1, Fortum and Demos Helsinki have introduced their Innovation Community initiative aimed at drastically accelerating the global energy sector’s transition to cleaner, more environmentally sustainable energy generation. The announcement of this initiative was made in Helsinki at the Slush 2018, the world’s leading startup event. Innovation Community is…


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It’s time to go beyond experimentation – Demos Helsinki in the OECD

Over the last years, it has become obvious that governments could benefit a lot more from experimentation. Experimentation helps co-designing solutions, policies, and services together with potential end users. It mitigates risks because it enables the fast process of turning ideas into practice. Without immediate ‘fear of implementation’, governments are…


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Demos Helsinki wants to accelerate the global change – we need you aboard

We live in strange times. By many standards, the world is a better place than ever before. We are wealthier than ever before and many of the UN millennium goals have been reached. Poverty rates have been halved and more girls are able to go to school. Solar energy has…


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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.


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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.


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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?


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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.


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