Pauli Saloranta

Who? 

Pauli Saloranta is an experienced developer of participation and democracy. He works as an expert in Sitra’s Democratic Innovations programme and leads a project on the dissemination and consolidation of deliberative citizen panels in public administration in Finland.

What?

Pauli’s interests are knowledge-based participation, its use in decision-making already in the preparation phase, necessary civic capabilities and, on the other hand, systemic steering of participation. He sees the future of governance increasingly driven by the rise of individual participation alongside traditional community-based engagement.

Putting these themes into practice, Pauli helped municipalities develope structures for participation in Sitra Lab 4. As a new innovation, he has introduced citizen panels to support municipal financial planning. A working paper on experiments in six municipalities was published in spring 2025.
 
Previously, Pauli has worked at the City of Helsinki on widening participation, in the research sector and in State government. His background also includes a quarter century of experience in the NGO sector in development roles and as a civic activist.

Pauli holds both a Master of Arts and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Helsinki. In his master’s thesis on Nordic studies, he investigated the origins and applications of participatory budgeting in Finland and around the world.

What else? 

Whenever possible, Pauli likes to heat up the sauna and also tie traditional birch whisk to accompany.