The OSCE by All pilot project final report, compiling all of the published articles of the project, has now been published. OSCE by All, implemented by Historians without Borders in Finland, engaged Finnish civil society actors and citizens more broadly and aimed to motivate interest in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) as a unique, comprehensive security organization.
The aim of the OSCE by All project, which ran from January 2024 until May 2025 with the support of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, has been to raise the voices of civil society and experts in view of Finland’s 2025 OSCE Chairmanship and to promote the debate on Finland’s foreign policy history. The project has engaged discussion between experts, policy-makers and the general public to look at the OSCE’s past, present and future.
Comprehensive security indicates that there are multiple issues that influence security, insecurity, and ultimately, the well-being of citizens. Today, this is reflected in the OSCE’s three dimensions of security: the politico-military, the economic and environmental, and the human dimensions. Comprehensive security indicates that all three dimensions are overlapping and interrelated issues that need to be addressed collectively – a mentality that many experts fear is being forgotten as rearmament and hard security, or security based on the number of weapons systems a country has, takes priority.
The objective of this final publication is to outline the efforts undertaken in the OSCE by All pilot project and present lessons learned from ongoing civil society–state cooperation in Finland. These conclusions have implications for Finnish politics, but also civil society engagement in OSCE participating States more broadly.
The main project team consisted of the Historians without Borders team: Senior Researcher Bradley Reynolds at the University of Turku, Coordinator Suvi Jaakkola, and Secretary General Heta Hedman. Professor Louis Clerc at the University of Turku and Research Director Marko Lehti at Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI) acted as implementation partners at different stages of the project. Dr. Johanna Ketola was also a founding member and participated in the project during the first grant funding period.
Our warm thank you to everyone who participated in the conception and implementation of this project and for their support and motivation!
The final report is published as a physical copy and as a digital version. The physical copies can be obtained at Historians without Borders’s events.
Rethinking Helsinki: Engaging the Past to Motivate the Present. OSCE by All Pilot Project Final Report.
HWB Report 7, 6/2025
ISBN 978-952-69180-6-8
ISBN 978-952-69180-7-5
ISSN 2984-0988
Historians without Borders in Finland, 2025
