Democracy Research Network aims to live out democracy in many of its various forms. One key element is social impact: facilitating and participating in public discourse, popularizing research and building bridges to other forms of democratic work than just academia. Some of the ways we are doing this is collaborating with the arts field, such as Tampere Film Festival and theather company Teatteri Metamorfoosi.
Another key aspect of our work is collaboration with public actors or common spaces such as social media. To facilitate public discussions we have collaborated with Main Library Metso as well as social media platform Jodel, especially regarding elections and voter participation. Next summer, 2025, we will also participate in the Puistofilosofia festival.
We also look to collaborate with various third sector actors and so far, we have worked with Tampere based actors such as Kaari Koirat and Villivyöhyke. One of our aims is also to gather funding regarding further research around the important work that third sector actors carry out in our society.
Additionally, we always aim for multidisciplinary efforts within our own Tampere university. So far we have collaborated with research platform Turns and research programs STUE and SWS. Our board includes members from three different faculties and our network spans through out the different disciplines of our university.