Hybrid Democratic Innovations (HYDE) 

In Finland, instruments of citizen deliberation and participation have to date been used only to a limited extent in socially significant and complex policy issues. One such issue is work-based immigration, where public debate is often polarised and confrontational. This calls for new participatory approaches to support decision-making, giving citizens opportunities for constructive, informed discussion on alternative policy options

In this project, we design and implement a deliberative citizens’ assembly that is representative of Finland’s adult population. The assembly will produce considered recommendations on work-based immigration. It is part of The Future of Work-Based Immigration project, a joint initiative of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. The initiative combines various forms of citizen participation with different forms of knowledge production to support policymaking.

The citizens’ assembly will bring together approximately 100 people living in Finland, selected through random sampling. Between November 2026 and February 2027, participants will meet to learn about the state of the art and future trajectories of work-based immigration, deliberate in small groups, and draft a joint written statement. Their work will be supported by expert hearings and extensive background materials bringing together citizen, expert and research-based knowledge generated during earlier phases of the process. 

Democracy researchers and developers have called for reliable measures and new knowledge on the policy impacts of citizen participation. There is particularly little systematic research on the impacts of hybrid democratic innovations. In this project, we also evaluate the impacts of the overall process and examine how participating citizens, civil servants, political decision-makers and interest groups perceive citizen participation and the statements and recommendations produced through the process.

The project will be carried out in 2026–2027. It is closely linked to our research group’s other projects, which examine, for example, AI-based solutions to citizen participation and the effects of deliberation on public debate.

Photo: University of Turku/Hanna Oksanen