Topic
Public governance
Commentary
Imagining futures where society has successfully undergone a sustainability transformation helps us envision a world in which today’s major negative trends have been brought under control. But what kind of positive futures have been proposed in recent years? At the request of the Finnish Expert Panel for Sustainable Development, Demos Helsinki conducted a literature review and drafted three preliminary visions of such futures.
Governments that invest in foresight-driven policymaking are better positioned to shape the conditions that they operate in. This is how to build policies that both anticipate and influence the future.
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.
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.
Publications
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.
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.
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.
Projects
Design for Circularity helps policymakers move beyond recycling by focusing on upstream design decisions that shape sustainable value chains and industrial transformation.
Without a shared vision of the future, decisions made today may inadvertently lead us down the most familiar paths, not the right ones.
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.
People
Jussi Asikainen
Humans are forced to make sense of the infinite reality using finite faculties and tools. During this process, it is easy to mistake simplicity for clarity. It is the latter one that we are after, and Jussi helps us towards this goal. His analytical mindset and ability to synthesise diverse…
Aline Amorim Bolis
Aline is a city lover, inspired by the cultural energy, diversity, and creativity that flourish when people share space and ideas. She’s driven by the question of how cities can become a stage for social change and wellbeing. Her focus is on how to promote sustainable urban development that will…
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
Bhuvana Sekar is an Expert at Demos Helsinki, where she focuses on participatory and service design, design thinking, and strategic impact design, particularly within the public sector. Her work is guided by a commitment to advancing public-sector innovation and social transformation through multidisciplinary collaboration. Bhuvana holds a Master’s degree in…
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…
Johannes Anttila
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
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
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.
Doomed to grow or ready to transform?
December 3, 2025
Economic growth used to be a cause that had effects, and the desired and expected effects were a matter of political and public debate until the 1990s recession. The meanings and expectations towards growth changed over time, and the idea of economic growth evolved within the debates and the very varied perspectives to growth. Our report “Doomed to Grow” calls for acknowledging growth’s historical recent origins and past pluralism in how economic growth has been discussed.