Topic
Public governance
Commentary
Foreword by Juha Leppänen The Tragedy of the Form Here is something we rarely talk about: the “form” in “transformation”. We pursue systemic change from forms designed for the industrial era. How can we transform societies if we don’t challenge our forms first? Demos Helsinki community, though with some notable…
Finland pioneered a governance model for the wellbeing economy, integrating social and planetary wellbeing. Its approach involves broad stakeholder involvement and political prioritization. To implement it elsewhere, countries must tailor localized governance models. Finland’s experience highlights the importance of holistic, multi-stakeholder approaches and integrating ecological goals into policy frameworks.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how health crises are interconnected with political, social, and economic factors. Syndemic theory explains how overlapping health and social issues, like poverty and violence, worsen each other. Applying this concept to future health governance could improve decision-making by considering broader societal impacts and fostering resilience.
The Collingridge dilemma highlights the challenge of regulating new technologies due to limited early knowledge and entrenched systems later. Experimental governance offers a solution through early, continuous collaboration between stakeholders, fostering transparency and trust. This approach helps co-develop accountable and equitable technologies while addressing societal risks.
Digital platforms have the potential to support meaningful governance and strengthen civil society. By leveraging their precision, transparency, anticipatory abilities, and capacity to incentivize behaviors, platforms can play a central role in addressing societal challenges like climate change and inequality. However, conscious efforts must be made to steer platforms away from solely benefiting businesses and toward empowering citizens, fostering pluralism, and enabling collective action. The next few years are critical in determining how platforms will shape the future of governance and civil society.
Publications
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.
The notion of a “polycrisis” has become a defining feature of contemporary governance, and traditional administrative methods are increasingly inadequate. In this publication, Professor Sir Geoff Mulgan’s concept of “Generative Shared Intelligence” offers a model for addressing multidimensional problems in governance, emphasising the need for more flexible and collaborative structures designed for the sole purpose of sharing intelligence.
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.
Projects
The Circular Economy Green Deal is a novel Finnish steering instrument that catalyses collective action for systemic change towards circularity based on voluntary commitments. Demos Helsinki had the honour of leading the co-creative process that led to the creation of the Circular Economy Green Deal.
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems can undermine democracy via the cultural disruptions they create, the power dynamics they shift, their tendency toward opacity, and the speed at which they change. The KT4D project investigates how democracy and civic participation can be facilitated in an era of rapidly changing knowledge technologies — such as AI and big data, thereby mitigating the risks of such technologies and identifying how they can be used to reinforce democratic governance and trust in public institutions.
Demos Helsinki and the City of Tallinn, the European Green Capital 2023, joined forces to create an innovative approach to sustainability governance in cities. Together, we embarked on a journey to develop the concept of sustainability governance, aware that cities could hold the key to fostering sustainable transformation and have…
People
Anna Kurth
How can we reimagine city life within planetary boundaries? What governance tools and capabilities are needed to drive this transition? These are the questions that fuel Anna’s work at the intersection of urban climate policy and systems change. Anna has a BA in International Affairs from the University of St….
Lara Best-Dunkley
In a time of unprecedented geopolitical crises, Lara is the go-to person for a comprehensive and critical understanding of international governance and security. She believes in the importance of compassionate, collective and evidence-based decision-making, especially in the domain of hard security. Lara has a BSc in International Relations and Organisations…
Johannes Jauhiainen
At Demos Helsinki, Johannes Jauhiainen focuses on participation, interaction, impact, and science-society relations within the CoWup and CO3 research projects. He is passionate about public innovation, new forms of decision-making, democratic development, geopolitics, and the role of cities as pioneers of societal transformation. Before joining Demos Helsinki, Johannes worked on…
Sahib Singh
Sahib spends his time at Demos Helsinki’s preoccupied by just democratic futures and global governance. At the moment he won’t stop nattering about the need to think systemically and critically about democratic innovations, the political economy of global governance institutions and modes of effective alliance building. At his best, Sahib’s…
Tanya Sahdev
As part of the New Governance team at Demos Helsinki, Tanya contributes to reimagining and reshaping governance systems for a more inclusive and sustainable future. She brings a unique perspective to her role at Demos Helsinki with her background in design, which empowers her to see the bigger picture while…
Lina Forsman
De Bruxelles à Helsinki! Lina is our expert on multilevel governance from a city perspective. In her previous role, she ensured that cities’ viewpoints were considered in the EU legislative process. Focusing on the climate transition and legislation to tackle pollution in cities, she has drafted and executed numerous advocacy…
Isabella Gady
Isabella is fueled by a few big questions: How do we create the right conditions for meaningful change? What kind of self-leadership and practices can make that happen? And what capacities do public sector organisations need to harness to thrive and facilitate positive change? Her path to Demos Helsinki has…
Nina Langerholc
Nina is passionate and hands-on. She orchestrates our governance work and is in constant pursuit of new organisational and system-level approaches to increase the speed of societal transformation. Nina works on bridging the gaps and connecting different sectors, stakeholders, and organisations on a joint transformation journey. This means managing transformation…
Yu-Yi Huynh
How can citizen engagement transform cities? If you’re searching for the answer, no need to look further: Yu-Yi is here to help! Her knowledge of citizen engagement processes and participation is sought after. Justice in climate action is something we value deeply and Yu-Yi is an expert in its implementation…
Bhuvana Sekar
Bhuvana works as as an expert contributing to the Nordic Baukultur project and other strategic initiatives. She specialises in participatory design, human computer interaction, service design, and uses them as lenses to clarify her passions in the realms of public-sector, digital technologies, governance and social change transformations. In parallel, Bhuvana…
Elina Hakoniemi
Navigation into the future requires knowledge about the past – this is Elina’s guiding principle. She’s an expert in societal and political history, especially when it comes to welfare state, education, democracy or political language. Elina’s work focuses on recent history, and she looks at the society and governance via…
Lilybell Evergreen
Lilybell is our go-to climate governance expert. We all know the need for a sustainable future but there are not many pathways to reach it. Governance, however, offers one and Lilybell knows how to utilise this. Having worked with several European cities, including the City of Tallinn, the European Green…
Jenni Kilpi
To interact and connect – this is Jenni’s pathway to change. Whether it’s renewing a strategy, building an impact roadmap, mapping out future scenarios, or evaluating engagement processes, the key is building inclusive and empowering engagement and agency. Incidentally, this intersection is where Jenni shines. We cherish her ability to…
Beatriz Vasconcellos
Beatriz is a hands-on idealist who strongly believes in the government’s capacity to lead better societal outcomes. She works at the Transformative Governance team at Demos Helsinki, where she collectively tackles the challenge of making governments more resilient, and agents of systemic change. Her work work Ranges from reimagining new…
Vera Djakonoff
Clinging on to only what we have now is a lousy way forward. At Demos Helsinki, Vera’s work focuses on anticipatory governance: promoting governments’ and organisations’ ability to both build resilience and drive transformation. A key question in her work is: how can we create and deepen our connection to…
Erkki Perälä
Did you know that cities account for over 70% of global emissions? Erkki sure does, which is why he works on supporting the decarbonisation of several European cities. He is especially intrigued by connecting the narratives of climate change and the built environment, and finds cities a practically-sized unit to…
João Sigora
João Sigora is the Vice-Chair of the Board and a Senior Expert at Demos Helsinki. His work centres on pioneering new approaches to governance and enhancing public sector capacity for reimagining and co-creating desired futures. He brings specialised expertise in public sector innovation, with a strong foundation in foresight, experimentation,…
Iacopo Gronchi
Iacopo is our go-to expert in mission management. Societal transformations are changing the playing field of public governance. Public sector organisations are called on to reflect on the very purpose of their work: in other words, on their mission. That’s why Iacopo’s own mission is to help public managers achieve…
Kari Jalonen
Kari Jalonen is an organisational researcher whose work at Demos Helsinki focuses on planning, performing and developing the research operations at Demos Helsinki. Kari defended his Ph.D.(Econ.) on city strategy at the Hanken School of Economics in 2017, and has since worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University and…
Silva Mertsola
Public administrations are tasked with finding effective and efficacious solutions to complex societal challenges. Simultaneously, they must ensure that their processes are legitimate. Silva supports governments in aligning their governance arrangements with these demands. Silva is a doctoral researcher in political theory at the University of Stockholm where she studies…
Vincent Lassalle
Vincent is a senior expert in the New Governance Team. He has been a practitioner, a consultant, and a writer on the topic of organisational innovation and societal change for over a decade. Prior to joining Demos Helsinki, Vincent’s already international career focused on innovation and spanned most of its…
Maria Malho
Maria is a political scientist specialising in foresight, scenarios and futures thinking to create both high-quality research as well as actionable visions and strategies for making desirable futures easier to reach. She has extensive experience in leading and facilitating projects and research processes on a wide array of topics ranging…
Johannes Anttila (on leave)
What kinds of technologies do we actually want to live with? This is the question that Johannes keeps returning to in his work. Be it about working towards a shared vision in a national level AI program, building worker-led strategies towards emerging technologies or assessing the impacts of algorithms on democracy, Johannes…
Katri Sarkia (on leave)
As Managing Director, Katri looks out for, well, to put it short: everything! Leading societal transformations means we need the right capacities, relevant projects, new opportunities, and enough financial stability to be able to create impact. At the core of all of this are the people. Katri is the one we…
Otto-Wille Koste
Otto-Wille is a senior expert in the Regenerative Infrastructure Team. He focuses on cities’ sustainability transformations. Cities are under constant change opposed by various phenomena, and Otto-Wille develops processes and solutions with which cities and other actors in the urban sphere can foster required transformations. Otto-Wille holds a master’s degree…
Mikael Sokero
Connecting the needs of the future and the present is easier said than done, and Mikael knows that. Through years of experience, we are proud to say Mikael has truly conquered the art of strategic foresight. No wonder his expertise is in high demand. We strongly believe foresight plays a…
Johannes Mikkonen
Johannes is dedicated to redefining the terms and conditions of our digital futures by exploring the ways to reshape our current sociotechnical systems, advising on policies to remaster technologies and forming visions of emerging alternative futures. At Demos Helsinki, Johannes has worked with various ministries and Prime Minister’s Offices around…
Mikko Annala
We are a think tank with a mission. As the Managing Director, Mikko is responsible for our operations. Our organisation runs 100+ projects every year in 30+ countries. Mikko’s job is to ensure that, on our part, we manage to contribute to the global landscape and remain joyful while doing…
Juha Leppänen
It’s easy to talk the talk, but we take pride in also walking the walk. And ensuring that this happens is our very own Juha. How to build operational hypotheses to truly drive change forward? What is the “form” in “transformation”? How to organize collective action? Juha isn’t afraid to…
Olli Bremer
Olli has worked with us since early 2016, working across all sorts of projects and in a variety of capacities — for example, serving as Managing Director. Thus, he is a go-to person whenever we need to be able to connect different aspects of our work and sew together a…
Themes
Foresight is not just a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have for strengthening your societal relevance in a complex world.
The Tragedy of the Form
September 21, 2022
The “tragedy of the form” refers to society’s reliance on outdated structures designed for the industrial era, limiting our ability to address systemic challenges like the climate crisis. Despite a recognised need for collective action, existing forms are increasingly not fit-for-purpose, hindering real transformation and requiring new, more adaptive models.