Sitra
Sitra (the Finnish Innovation Fund) is an unusual institution: a public foundation operating under parliamentary supervision, with an independent mandate to invest in and build Finland's future. Among its workstreams — circular economy (including the World Circular Economy Forum), health data (TEHDAS2), data and AI — is a dedicated Democracy programme that develops and advocates for democratic innovations.
The Democracy track has issued formal statements on EU-level initiatives (the European Democracy Shield), researched the impact of social media algorithms on democratic discourse, and runs foresight work on the future of participation. Sitra's institutional position gives it a long time horizon and political independence that most democracy organisations lack — it answers to parliament, not to a government department or funding cycle, and can fund multi-year infrastructure projects in democratic innovation that project-based funding models cannot sustain.
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History
- 1967-01-01 Established by the Finnish Parliament as the Finnish Innovation Fund, under parliamentary supervisionFounding of the organisation
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2025-05-30
Proposed a European Civic Tech Hub in its statement on the European Commission's Democracy Shield initiativeFormal policy input to a major EU democracy initiative
Sourcing: High
To scale up participatory democracy and make it mainstream at all levels of governance, stronger European commitment is needed to foster European Civic Tech. Sitra proposes the creation of a European Civic Tech Hub.
Sitra focused its statement on the Democracy Shield's fourth theme (fostering citizens' participation and engagement), also urging close alignment with the EU's Data Union, Digital Europe and AI initiatives.
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