Topic

Public governance

Commentary

Demos Helsinki is part of three SRC-funded research projects on democracy and water security

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).

A time to build – shaping the next generation of public institutions

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.

For a wellbeing economy, we need to transform governance

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.

Climate governance and cities: leading the next decade

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.

Chapter 1: COP27 signalled an end of an era for cities

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.

Foresight and policymaking: lessons from Singapore and Finland

Finland and Singapore both lead in foresight-driven policymaking. Finland emphasizes cross-sector collaboration and futures research, while Singapore focuses on strategic scenario planning within government. Despite these strengths, both face challenges in fully integrating foresight into decision-making, underscoring the need for stronger institutional frameworks and capacity-building.

Publications

Steering through capability

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.

People First: A Vision for the Global Urban Age

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.

The Imaginary Crisis (and how we might quicken social and public imagination)

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.

Projects

Circular Economy Green Deal – a steering instrument for collective action towards circularity

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.

KT4D: Fostering democracy through knowledge technologies

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.

Sustainability Governance in the City of Tallinn

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

Themes