New democracy is something you can do!

Kalle Nieminen of Sitra's Synergise Finland development program blogs about new implementations of democracy.

The word 'synergy' implies energy, interaction, dynamics and the interest in new ideas. Synergy is created when people get active, creative, proactive and enthusiastic. Sitra's Synergise Finland development program looks for solutions to today's challenges from these perspectives. The first forum was held in spring 2011, focusing on the concept of new work. The topic of second forum, and the theme of this blogging, was new democracy.

Notes from the Education Seminars #4: Policy transfer, or an opportunity for reflection on ourselves?

Senior Researcher at the RSA, Louise Thomas, blogs about gaining new perspectives on England's schooling system through comparing it with the Finnish one.

The education debate in the UK seems mired in sets of assumptions about accountability, teachers, curriculum, notions like ‘excellence’, ‘dumbing down’, ‘prizes for all’ and so on. Our opinions of our own education and that of our children, coupled with the peculiar English prejudice towards academic excellence, means that our thinking is often clouded by prejudice. I, for one, have found reflection on the Finnish system a tonic, allowing me to think outside of the particularity of the English system.

Open Data Monthly Review 04/2012

A review of latest news and blog posts in the field of open data.

Notes from the Education Seminars #3: Local, National, Transnational

Dr. Mary Hilson, Senior Lecturer in the department of Scandinavian Studies at UCL, blogs about Lessons from the North seminar held at the Finnish Institute in London at the end of March.

The second seminar in the Finnish Institute’s recent mini-series on education, “Lessons from the North”, was a collaboration with the UCL Nordic-Baltic Research Group, as the final seminar in their ESRC-funded seminar series “The Nordic and Baltic Countries in the European Political Imagination”.  Throughout the series we have explored different areas of policy exchange and transfer between the UK and the Nordic-Baltic region, including economic policy, health and welfare, tolerance and diversity, environment and energy. (link to www.ucl.ac.uk/nordic-baltic)

Notes from the Education Seminars #2: The Times They Are a-Changin’, but what is the course education is taking?

Finnish Educator and Consultant, Sirkku Nikamaa-Berg, one of the panelists in the 'Lessons from the North' seminar, blogs about the future of education.

The pace of societal and technological change places increasing demands on individuals and communities yet schools seem to dawdle when they could and they should be fully engaged in the development. The task of basic education is to raise adults of the future, help prepare them for jobs that may not exist yet and to give them tools and capabilities for a good life. The goal of education cannot merely be the delivery of the curriculum, but the internalization of the underlying concepts, and the ability to think critically and act socially.

Notes from the Education Seminars #1: What Was Said

Ilari Lovio blogs about the key perspectives discussed in recent education seminars, organised by the Finnish Institute with its various partners. These topics will be discussed further in the forthcoming series of blog posts on education.

During the last week of March, the Finnish Institute’s event series that tackles education from various perspectives started. Two seminars were held on the 29th and 30th of March, organised in cooperation with the Institute of Education, UCL Nordic-Baltic Research Group, University of Helsinki, and the Embassy of Finland in London.

Open Data Monthly Review 03/2012

A review of latest news and blog posts in the field of open data.

Our new research on open data argues for better user engagement and more research on the societal impacts

Fellow at the Finnish Institute in London, Antti Halonen, blogs about his newly published report: Being Open About Data

The Finnish Institute in London has recently completed a five-month research project on the British open data policies. Report looks on how the open data ecosystem has emerged in the UK and what lessons can be drawn upon the British experiences. The year 2012 will be a big year for open data in Finland, and this report also partly aims at further facilitating the development of open knowledge in Finland.  

London is Entering a Golden Age of Social Investment

The Director of SharedImpact, Paul Cheng, blogs about Social Investments.

For over 300 years, London has been one of the world’s great centres of financial innovation. Ideas, for example, about how to manage financial risk through structures such as companies limited by shares and the concept of insurance were developed and refined by pioneering financiers in the London coffee houses of 18th century England.

The Future of Openness or the Age of Uncertainty?

Mikael Järvelin from the Finnish Institute in London blogs about censorship in modern society.

On the 29th of February 2012 London School of Economics organized a panel discussion on the topic ‘Censorship in an Age of Freedom’. Charlie Beckett, the director of Polis and the author of a book ‘Wikileaks: News in the Networked Era’, Heather Brooke, investigative journalist and the author of ‘The Revolution Will Be Digitized’ and Nick Cohen, journalist and author of ‘You Can’t Read This Book: Censorship In an Age of Freedom’ held a discussion on censorship in today’s society based on their newly published books. This blog post contemplates the ideas of that discussion. At the same time as people cheer for opening of government data, governments are taking drastic measures to conceal unwanted information offered by Wikileaks and the likeminded websites.