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Write the future,
with Demos Helsinki.
About Demos Helsinki
As a journalist, you contribute to the future by highlighting ideas that matter. Whether you are already writing a story or looking for inspiration, Demos Helsinki can provide trustworthy commentary while remaining joyful and optimistic about societies and our future.
Governments and other organisations come to Demos Helsinki looking for new ideas, concepts, points of growth, and strategic change when old tools become outdated. Our people lead the way in challenging the status quo to bring about positive societal change. We work with global actors, including the United Nations, OECD, European Commission, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and many others, to reshape societies.
Get the unexpected angle of any story — big or small
Demos Helsinki experts always provide useful context that can promote public dialogue and increase the stakes of any story. All of our experts are available for comments, and you can find them here. Otherwise, see if something sparks your interest from the featured topics below:
Cutting-edge research and evidence-based policies
We have an extensive research portfolio that explores the dynamics of institutions and society.
Public administration and governance
Our current institutions, tools, and policies are not fit for purpose. We have been building a number of approaches, models, and frameworks that can create a new type of governance — one that can instigate and sustain just transformations.
See our relevant research, projects, experts, and thoughts ->
Sustainability and post-sustainability
Our experts have 20 years of experience studying societal and behavioural trends regarding the sustainability transition, while also carrying out direct engagements with governments, companies, universities, and civil society to accelerate a just transformation.
See our work and experts on Sustainability & Climate Action ->
New economic thinking, wellbeing economy, new economic indicators
Our economic system has revealed its pain points. We believe that there are economic interventions that go beyond policy. What if our economies focused on wellbeing instead of growth? What if new key indicators replaced GDP?
Industrial policy for the post-industrial era
Industrial policy is about governance — and we said before it was cool. Governments are now dealing with strategic uncertainty and a gap in capacities, while also missing the right tools to engage meaningfully with critical-industry leaders.
Emerging technologies and how to design, develop and deploy them equitably
Technology cannot be treated as a sector. We consistently develop research and recommendations on the responsible and ethical deployment of technologies, the rollout of ethical AI, and the future of work, governance, and regulation in a digitalised era.
The future of care, healthcare, and welfare
Demands for care are growing due to a number of factors. Our work shows the need to integrate care in all economic sectors and all aspects of life.
Cities, their challenges, and their opportunities
Cities can lead essential transitions by instigating and sustaining collective action. Our 20+ years of experience in urban transformations reveals city-governance gaps and opportunities.
Connect with the right expert
Send your request to angeliki.vourdaki[at]demoshelsinki.fi, including your name, publication, and a short summary of what interests you. Our colleague, Angeliki, will help direct you to the right person.
Latest news
See what Demos Helsinki has been up to.
Savilahti citizen profiles 2030 and 2050
Post
May 31, 2017
How will people live, work and spend daily life in Kuopio in 2030 or 2050? How does urbanisation, changing demographics, digitalisation and resource scarcity transform and impact our cities in the future? Savilahti citizen profiles 2030 & 2050 examines how future megatrends and phenomena influence local environment in Savilahti, Kuopio….
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Peloton Club
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May 31, 2017
Peloton Club is an accelerator and an ecosystem dedicated to leverage the full scope of opportunities arising from the most burning challenge of human history: climate change and the depletion of natural resources. We help the most ambitious startup-teams to tap into these opportunities by providing them with the tools…
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Nordic Sustainable Cities
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May 2, 2017
Nordic Sustainable Cities is a collaboration with Nordic Innovation. The programme consists of challenge competitions, defining and branding the nordic way of building cities and export efforts of highly advanced solutions for sustainable, liveable and smart cities. In this project create benchmark projects that alliances that base on unique features of the…
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Urban entrepreneurship is ultimately about creating happiness
Post
January 27, 2017
Would you like to become an urban entrepreneur? Below you can find some features of successful ‘urbanpreneurs’ in a new generation smart city, as they have been coined by Boyd Cohen. According to Cohen, urbanpreneurs can prosper if they rethink the ultimate goal of their businesses. According to Boyd Cohen,…
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Why Co-Creation: We need democracy in democracies
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January 12, 2017
The real meaning of co-creation and participatory processes is not listening to more opinions and fine-tuning the outcomes accordingly but honestly open-ended deliberation and distributed decision-making on things that matter to us. That is how these processes can bring more democracy in democracy. Outi Kuittinen from Demos Helsinki talks to…
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Demos at Slush: Governing the Platforms
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November 29, 2016
Our societies are undergoing fundamental change driven by the emergence of platforms. The way people come together, communicate and create value is changing. In a possible future, all of our interactions with strangers will be facilitated by global digital platforms: from trade to meetings to sex to services and peer-help….
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