Explore what an innovation is – Open Government

Before creating a submission, please consider  the following characteristics of public sector innovation a well as our criteria for acceptance.

What is an open government innovation?

An open government innovation is any good practice that promotes the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation in support of democracy, good governance and inclusive growth. 

At its core, an open government innovation is:

The innovation is novel

• The innovation is novel for the organisation, company or institution where it is implemented, even if other organisations elsewhere have done something similar.

The innovation is implemented

• The innovation is at a stage where it has begun to reach its users or beneficiaries (even if these are only in the form of a pilot study or a test; some prototypes and proofs of concept may also apply).
• Project plans/strategies/intentions to innovate in the future do not qualify unless they have been actualised in some way.

The innovation has made/ has the potential to make public impact

• The innovation has the potential to make a public impact, or is in such a state that you can amass some quantitative or qualitative data (however preliminary) on its impact in areas such as:
  • Efficiency – an improvement in outputs in relation to inputs.
  • Effectiveness – an improvement in achieving given objectives.
  • Service quality – enhancing the provision of (public) services.
  • Accessibility – ease of access to a service. These may be related to cost; geographic distance; number of service providers; complexity and availability of a service.
  • Responsiveness – i.e. the ability to respond to different user needs or user views.
  • Reliability – i.e. the accuracy and consistency of a service.
  • User satisfaction – a recorded improvement in users’ reported satisfaction.
• If quantitative/ qualitative data does not yet exist at the time of case study submission, please include expected potential results based on initial estimates and indicate how results will be measured at a later stage.