Finland

Systems thinking in a time of crisis. In conversation with SITRA Lab’s Mikael Seppälä

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As of today, there are more than 2.17 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally. The pandemic has spread at an unprecedented speed to more than 190 countries around the world. By the end of March 2020, over 180 countries had closed down their schools. Governments are taking action around the world to manage school closures, […]

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First impressions from a week of distance learning in Finland. In conversation with my daughters

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This week I read this article on EdTech published in the Guardian which asked Can computers ever replace the classroom?  Here in Finland due to the coronavirus pandemic only a few schools remain open  and the question is no longer whether computers can replace the classroom, during these weeks they have to. So, I talked

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Reference societies and adaptive development: a conversation with Daniel Suryadarma about Indonesia’s participation in the PISA educational assessment

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During a seminar organised by the EduKnow research group at the University of Tampere on comparative education, I came across the interesting concept of reference society. In a nutshell, countries which, like Finland, find themselves at the top of the PISA ranking may become models or references for countries looking for ways to improve their education policies

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A conversation about policy experiments

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The search for ways to design policies that help to solve societal problems is continuously evolving. The traditional evidence-based approach to policy making involves generating research results and using these to inform policy decisions. This blog post is based on an interview with Mikko Annala, Head of Governance Innovation at Demos Helsinki. It was originally posted on

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Flag of Finland. Photo: Sepi V (CC BY 2.0)

Making research evidence count: insights from Finland’s Policy Analysis Unit

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After more than a decade in Asia working to build governments’ use of evidence, I recently moved back to Finland. Here I’ve found commitment to evidence and innovation like nowhere else. Kokeileva Suomi or Experimental Finland is a great example of the nation’s ‘readiness to innovate’. Set up by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä in 2015, it tests policies

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