Publications
Reports, analysis and policy recommendations for brave leaders and communities.
The report provides insights into how the dominant ways of thinking about growth have taken shape and become entrenched: What has changed over the decades? And what might the future look like? Finnish discourse is also placed in the broader context of international societal and scientific debates, as well as global shifts in the operating environment.
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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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Can a society be steered? Should governments even try to do that? Or should they just preside? In this paper, Demos Helsinki fellow, UCL professor and former Chief Executive of Nesta Geoff Mulgan shows why governments should steer and how they can show the way for our societies to overcome the transformational challenges that they are facing in the current century, from the climate crisis to aging populations.
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While it is argued that smart city development is at an impasse, we argue that it is at a crossroads. It is possible to simultaneously develop and adopt new technologies and strengthen people’s rights, and this People-first vision presented in this report will show how.
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At Demos Helsinki, we have been working towards societal transformation for the past 15 years. Now there are 50 of us and we work all over the world. In 2019, we worked in 138 projects in almost 30 countries. Societal transformation is in great demand.
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We find it easy to imagine apocalypse and disaster; or to imagine new generations of technology. But we find it much harder than in the past to imagine a better society a generation or more into the future. In this paper, Demos Helsinki Fellow Geoff Mulgan sets out thoughts on what, how, and who to address this gap.
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There is a lack of shared understanding on the problems that hinder the transformative capabilities of the EU Member States. Without this shared understanding, also lacking are a common direction and actions. This publication is about the concept “Economy of Wellbeing” – an approach that seeks to aid the transformation towards just and fair societies in the European Union.
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Digitalisation, continuously in progress, offers significant opportunities to build continuously learning, unbounded government and organise public services in unprecedented practices and contexts. This publication outlines the theses of digital-era governance and brings forward opportunities for building more inclusive, continuously learning, and unbounded next-era government.
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