Publications
Reports, analysis and policy recommendations for brave leaders and communities.
The European Democracy Shield is a timely and commendable initiative aimed at addressing the EU’s growing democratic challenges. However, it would benefit from a more human-centered approach focusing on citizen participation, civil society engagement, and more nuanced policies on digital regulation.
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The answer isn’t less democracy, but more. New participatory and deliberative processes aimed at involving citizens in decision-making are gaining traction across Europe, but their long-term success depends on how well they are embedded into the public administration and society.
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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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Experimentalism is a ‘hidden third option’ that overcomes pre-existing dichotomies and can update the governance of R&I funding while steering it towards societal transformation.
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What are the most appropriate institutional arrangements for effective governance? How can governance systems effectively operate across different levels, such as local, regional, national, and supranational? How can governments improve their capacity to evaluate policies, learn from successes and failures, and adapt to changing circumstances? By transforming the civil service, we can answer these questions.
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In this discussion paper, written together with Marcos Bonturi, former director of Public Governance at the OECD, Demos Helsinki shares the recent learnings in the field of public governance, identified four characteristics that describe a desirable future government, and presents inspirational governance innovation -cases from Finland, Brazil, Colombia and Serbia.
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The government must be able to find novel solutions to the greatest challenges of our time, such as the climate crisis, new security threats, an ageing population, and technological transformations. Directional mission-driven research and innovation policy provides an approach for the government to implement its strategic objectives by solving complex challenges with actors in different sectors.
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Over the last few years, the transition to a sustainable future has increasingly started to determine the direction of society and the economy — most notably through investments in new technologies and real capital. However, how can we make these investments matter if we lack the skills to utilise and develop them?
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In this publication, we suggest that the premises of our economies are in flux, requiring the state to take on a new role in governing the economy: the role of the orchestrator. An orchestrating state conducts its economic policy by closely working with its key stakeholders to achieve explicitly and democratically defined goals.
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Migration is a complex, multi-dimensional, and fast-changing domain, and yet, we have yet to see a long-term, humane, and sustainable approach to migration governance. What if we applied foresight methodologies to migration?
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On the one hand, we are more connected than ever. On the other hand, what many see as efficient services and the blossoming of creativity in their lives, is shadowed by news of data misuse, abuse of power, precarious work and extractive mining of natural resources. Do we accept these terms and conditions? If we don’t, we need to change the settings: we do this through interventions.
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Equality and diversity need to be improved in Finnish higher education institutions. This study showed that Finland lags behind its peer countries in promoting equality and diversity. There are large differences between higher education institutions in their ambition to address equality and diversity issues and, for example, in implementing and monitoring statutory equality and diversity plans.
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