Insight
My greatest achievement – and my deepest passion – has been co-founding and shaping Demos Helsinki. What began as an idea has grown into an independent, respected, and internationally recognised think tank. A place where research, innovation and policy meet across disciplines. A community driven not by profit or prestige, but by the ambition to create real, transformative impact in society.
Process
The story of Demos Helsinki – founded in 2005 together with Roope Mokka – reminds me that success rarely follows a straight line. It requires skill, yes. Determination, certainly. But also chance encounters, unexpected turns, and the peculiar habits that end up shaping history.
Our roots lay in activism – formed during our years with the urban environmental NGO Dodo – and in philosophy, studied side by side at the University of Helsinki.
The spark came in an unlikely moment. After a late-night screening of Kill Bill 2, our former philosophy lecturer, Antti Hautamäki – just back from London, inspired by visits to places like the think tank Demos – turned to us and said: “Why don’t you start something like that here?” Sixteen months later, our first project was underway.
Back then, the very idea of a think tank was almost unknown in Finland. We became the first independent one to find wider recognition.
Those early years – especially the first three – were carried by grit, the joy of shared thinking, and deep friendship between Roope and me. But everything after that has been a collective story. A story far greater than the two of us.
Many people have shaped this journey. We may have opened the door, but the house was built – and continues to be built – by a community. We’ve always sought not only brilliant minds, but kind ones. People of passion, perspective, and shared purpose.
We’ve grown steadily. We’ve taken leaps in scale and influence. And yet, the culture has remained distinctively ours – open, horizontal, purpose-driven. A think tank, yes. But also something else entirely.
Outcomes
After twenty years, Demos Helsinki is still growing, still evolving, still redefining what a think tank can be.
Today it is a community of around eighty people – coming from many countries, disciplines and perspectives. An international collective working with governments, cities, intergovernmental organisations, universities, NGOs, philanthropies and businesses across the world.
It is deeply rooted in the European research and innovation landscape – taking part in more than twenty projects funded by the European Commission and the Strategic Research Council of Finland. Its work resonates through reports, academic papers, public strategies and co-creation processes that have helped shape policies, institutions and futures.
Demos Helsinki is now recognised as a thought leader in areas such as transformative governance, embedding long-term perspectives in organisations, one-planet living, and urban transformations. And yet, at its heart, it remains what it has always been: a community defined by purpose, curiosity and hope.
Partners
Roope Mokka, Antti Hautamäki, Outi Kuittinen, Tuuli Kaskinen, Aleksi Aaltonen, Tommi Laitio, Simo Vassinen, Olli Alanen, Satu Lähteenoja, Juha Leppänen, Mikko Annala, Olli Bremer, Katri Sarkia, Johanna Lampinen, Johannes Koponen, Johannes Nuutinen, Johannes Mikkonen, Julia Jousilahti, Kaisa Schmidt-Thomé, Otto-Wille Koste, Henrik Suikkanen, Leena Alanko
Reflection
I am especially proud of having helped to build an organisation where the strongest motivation is not money, prestige, or status but societal impact. Equally important to me is the way we work: Through interaction and collaboration that bridges different realities – social, economic, and political.
Demos Helsinki has always chosen to focus on questions that matter for the future. Regenerative cities. One-planet societies. Transformative public governance. An economy built for planetary wellbeing. Ethical paradigms for emerging technologies.
I have read countless studies on organisations that tried to break the mould – structures designed to stand out, to resist convention. Most of them did not survive.
We never set out to be different. We simply worked in our own way. Always with social change and impact in mind. And through that quiet defiance, Demos Helsinki became something rare.
Today, it is a one-of-a-kind organisation. Controlled and steered by its employees. Guided not by profit, but by purpose. Shaped by a shared ethos that lives not in strategy documents but in everyday culture.
It is not a consultancy chasing clients. It is not a research institute backed by political machinery. It is not an advocacy group with prewritten agendas.
It is Demos Helsinki.
Demos Helsinki
