Pauliina Lehtonen

Pauliina Lehtonen's multidisciplinary work concentrates on public engagement, urban governance, and participatory democracy. She is especially interested in the questions of co-production of knowledge in urban space, participatory planning and decision-making practices, and challenges of social inclusion and everyday life in sustainable urban development. Methodologically, her expertise is in case study and action research as means to further the dialogic co-production of knowledge. She has a long experience of utilising participatory and co-creation methods with citizens, NGOs, and public sector in developing public engagement practices, such as citizen panels, participatory budgeting and community involvement.

Currently Pauliina leads the URBAN PROSUMERS project, funded by Horizon Europe (2025-2028), which supports the implementation of the EU’s Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission at the local level in the Tampere Region, Finland. By leveraging citizen science and participatory research methods, the consortium consisting of Tampere University (the PI), Tampere University of Applied Sciences, City of Tampere, Eco-Fellows and MDI, actively involves Tampere city residents and local stakeholders in co-creating solutions related to sustainable energy, mobility, and food systems. The project seeks to engage residents as both producers and consumers of sustainable solutions, services, and knowledge through co-creation and experimental community projects. Through co-creation, the project builds a knowledge transfer hub around the topic of sustainable urban prosumerism.

She also co-leads the Finnish sub-study of the ENHANCE project Empowering higher education through citizen science and innovative future-oriented learning strategies (Erasmus+, 2023-2026, led by Dublin City University). ENHANCE considers research methodology and teaching to create a democratic space within education institutions open to communities. The project develops future-oriented methods of citizen-engaged science (futures workshops) by training PhD students, researchers and teachers in citizen science.

-participatory and collaborative governance

-everyday democracy

-public engagement

-democratic innovations and policy mobility

-sustainable urban development

-citizen science

-co-creation

-participatory budgeting

Osallistuva budjetointi, kansalaistiede, kansalaisosallistuminen, kaupunkisuunnittelu, paikallishallinto, media, journalistinen työ

sosiaalipolitiikka, kaupunkitutkimus, hallinnontutkimus, median ja viestinnän tutkimus

Selected previous projects:

Towards Eco-Welfare Society. Orchestrating for Systemic Impact (ORSI, Strategic Research Council, 2022–2025)

Silent witnesses or active participants? Patterns of children and youth engagement in local governance in Poland and Finland, (2022–2025, University of Maria Curie-Sklodowska)

Establishing a community on empowering, inclusive and equitable citizen science within ECIU (ECIE, 2022–2023, ECIU-SMART-ER, Horizon 2020)

Eco-Social Well-being and Inclusion. New Dynamics of Urban Segregation (EKOS, 2020–2023, Ministry of Environment, Neighbourhood Development Programme) 

A Key to Success? The Communication of Knowledge in the Interpretation of Participatory Budgeting in Finland, Poland and the UK.(2016–2022, Academy of Finland Post-Doctoral Fellow)

Participatory Budgeting in Community-Driven Urban Planning (2014–2015, The Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland ARA, Neighbourhood Development Programme)