Topic
Public governance
Commentary
These three research projects are: 1) Reducing polarisation via material participation (MaDem); 2) Coastal waters under pressure – safeguarding a healthy Gulf of Finland in a changing geopolitical and environmental landscape (CoWup); and 3) Safe Water for All (WaterFall).
We are pleased to announce that the UNDP’s Istanbul Innovation Days (IID), taking place in March 2025, will focus on shaping the next generation of public institutions for a secure and prosperous world.
The wellbeing economy offers a new framework for governance, with wellbeing as the core objective for policy. Despite its potential, governments struggle to integrate wellbeing into governance effectively. Demos Helsinki’s work identifies key principles – participation, evidence, measurement, and long-term investments – to bridge the gap between purpose and practice, shaping a governance framework that places human and planetary wellbeing at the heart of economic strategy.
Cities are stepping up to tackle the climate crisis, but progress is often slow. Demos Helsinki identifies four key governance strategies to break the gridlock: domain-specific governance, cultural change, city ecosystem leadership, and multi-level governance. These approaches help cities embed climate thinking in decision-making, foster collective action, and lead national and global dialogues on climate solutions. By focusing on governance, cities can effectively meet their climate targets.
Cities are no longer just drivers of climate action but must now transform themselves into leaders of collective action. As we shift from gradual low-carbonisation to rapid decarbonisation, cities must rethink their role, governance, and tools to address the climate crisis and foster coordinated efforts for sustainable change.
Publications
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.
This policy brief focuses on short-term action (2026-2028) around AI governance and provides practical guidelines for experts and policymakers. It introduces a framework that embeds democratic pillars — participation, freedom, equality, transparency, knowledge, and the rule of law — directly into the entire AI lifecycle.
In this Editorial, we tackle perhaps the most urgent issue of our time – the need to orient lives more towards sufficiency. Achieving such a transformation also requires a parallel paradigm shift in science. In this Editorial, we have two guest authors, Teemu Koskimäki and Aleksi Neuvonen, who are members of the SISU Consortium doing research on sufficiency transition in Finland.
Projects
The Climate-Proofing Nordic Security project examines whether the region’s whole-of-society security model is built for the climate reality now taking shape. Funded by the Nordic Climate and Air Programme (NKLP), the project combines climate-security risk mapping with a hands-on simulation exercise for decision-makers across Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland.
ESPON TERRBOUND partners with sub-national authorities to co-create approaches that bring planetary boundaries into the practice of territorial governance.
Jharkhand now has roadmaps through 2050 to steer a fair shift from coal, a trained district cohort and a shared method. The work finished in May 2025 and left the state with people who can act.
People
Myrnelle Cinco
Myrnelle is passionate about the intersection of technology, policy, human rights, and international development. She believes in the transformative power of digital technologies— a power that must be shaped and governed with intentionality to ensure it is rooted in fairness, human dignity, and inclusivity. Right now, her focus is on…
Carolina Jansen
Carol is passionate about people, research, and public policy. She finds poetry in the small things in life and is always ready to work collectively. She believes it is possible to develop a new form of public governance: one that brings together public policy and grassroots technology to protect constitutional…
Artturi Pura
Artturi is driven by the question of how public policy can shape socially just, economically prosperous, and democratically sustainable futures. Recognising that these societal goals are increasingly intertwined with our digital landscape, Artturi explores how to strengthen the capacity of policy to govern and reshape technological change. At Demos Helsinki,…
Yannick Pritschet
Yannick is driven by a vision to redefine the security landscape, advocating for shifting the conversation from traditional “hard security” toward a model centered on human care, social justice and sustainable practices. Colleagues often approach him regarding the intersection of security and human care, where by prioritizing the well-being of…
Angela Galeano
Angela’s work sits at the intersection of innovation, learning, and public transformation. With a sharp eye for systems, a strong belief in experimentation, and a deep sense of humanity, she is especially passionate about helping governments become more imaginative, inclusive, and better equipped to navigate uncertainty, with both creativity and…
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
Tanya is driven by a simple but powerful idea: design can shape more just, inclusive, and imaginative systems. At Demos Helsinki, she puts this belief into practice – working at the intersection of cities, governance, and sustainability to support transformative change. Tanya brings a design-led perspective to complex societal challenges,…
Lina Forsman
De Bruxelles à Helsinki! Lina is our go-to expert on how multilevel governance works in practice. Before joining Demos, she helped put cities at the centre of EU policymaking, shaping advocacy strategies on everything from urban air and water quality to nature restoration. Her work focused on the climate transition…
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
How do governments learn? How is trust built between institutions and citizens? These are the questions that drive Bhuvana. She works at the intersection of participatory governance, experimentalist and humble governance, and just transitions – helping governments and institutions build the capacity to sit with complexity, experiment with new approaches,…
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…
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…
Katri Sarkia
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
Mikael is a strategic advisor and a senior expert in governance innovation who helps societies navigate complex sustainability transitions — from the architecture of institutions to the cultures that sustain them. His work sits at the intersection of governance design and systemic change. Colleagues seek him out when the challenge…
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 that holds itself accountable for leading societal transformations. As Chief Development Officer, Mikko is responsible for leading the development of new instruments and priority initiatives that push our mission forward. This means spotting and developing opportunities that impact the evolution of our partners and our…
Juha Leppänen
Juha Leppänen serves as Chair of the Board at Demos Helsinki. With a mission to build a fair, sustainable and joyful next era, Juha helps national and local governments, businesses and NGOs to anticipate and lead key transformations of our century. Advising actors from private corporations like Nokia to NGOs…
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.
Innovating urban development: Lessons from M4EG & moving beyond growth
April 17, 2025
Two key lessons from our work in the Mayors for Economic Growth project, in collaboration with UNDP Europe and Central Asia: 1) Innovation needs to occur at multiple levels and 2) If we’re to be effective, we must remain humble.